I live in the USA, and our future seems more bleak than it ever has. Is not about politics, although politicians do have an impact on it. It’s really about our quality of life, and cost of living, which has not changed for the better, it seems, in a really long time. The cost of living keeps going up higher and higher, and much of our country still believes that even with increased cost of living, there is never any reason whatsoever to pay people more. So for instance, a job that paid 10 bucks an hour in the year 2002, that same job might still pay $10 an hour now. But I think we all know that the cost of living has dramatically gone up from 2002 to now.
Even White collar jobs though seem to be threatened to now, which is not something I’ve ever seen before. Positions like analyst, engineer, business intelligence, revenue management, whatever you want to think of. Any corporate office job, people are suffering. The cost of living is absurd, buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income and it better be nearly six figure dual income…
I just don’t see how Americans at large are going to survive the next 30 years?
Your questions are stating false comparisons. The only alternative to buying a house you listed is renting an equivalent house. But there are several other alternatives. To buy a house you must qualify on you and your spouse’s/ Co buyers proven income. So even if you intend to have a roommate, you cannot included the rent they’ll pay in your income. But it’s almost trivial for two couples (4 incomes) to rent a house together. There are also apartments, or trailer parks, or living with parents.
But let’s get back to equivalent homes.
A young couple makes 80k/yr and wants to buy a 250k house. They can’t afford much of a down payment and finance 225k. They’re paying roughly 2500/mo in a mortgage tax and insurance. That’s roughly half their take home income.
Older couple makes 160k/yr and just sold their previous home walking away with about 100k in equity. They also add 25k more for the down payment and finance 125k. Now their mortgage is 1200/ mo and they make more money so that represents a far lower percentage of their take home income as well. Even if they still only made 80k the fact they were already in a home with equity still leaves them with far more spending money each month.
The young couple is going to be in an apartment, or a trailer, they’re never getting into that home, even as a rental, unless the owners bought it during a low market and have a low mortgage and are not trying to get “today’s market rates” for it.