Stuck In Your Parents’ Basement? Don’t Blame The Economy

[MadImmortalMan]

In a lot of these cases, those millennials' parents couldn't afford to buy the homes they live in if they were doing it today.

[Monoriu]

I agree that young people should be willing to move in order to get jobs.  But I don't think that is the only reason why people sometimes look down upon others for living with their parents.  The "they should be independent instead of depending on others" vibe is strong, and I think that's not helpful.  Staying with parents makes good financial sense and that's that. 

[CountDeMoney]

Shut up, Mono.

[Phillip V]

What are the household statistics for Israeli millennials?  Related to their universal conscription/draft?

[DGuller]

It just doesn't pay off to build new affordable rental units.

Building unaffordable rental units does?

By affordable I obviously mean affordable to non-highly-compensated young professionals to live in alone, without splitting it with roommates.  At least in New York City area, the vast majority of new residential construction seems to be either luxury rentals or luxury condos.  Modestly priced housing stock has all been built at least 50 years ago, if not much more than that.  Most big cities are very liberal places, and unfortunately suffer from all the liberal excesses when it comes to policy-making.

[Capetan Mihali]

Housing in NYC is the worst of both the liberal (true rent control for older tenants who've occupied their units since before the cut-off date and pay literally a few hundred dollars in month for rent, despite being upper-middle class in every other way) and the conservative ("planned shrinkage" and unrestrained Trump-style development) worlds.

[Berkut]

It just doesn't pay off to build new affordable rental units.

Building unaffordable rental units does?

By affordable I obviously mean affordable to non-highly-compensated young professionals to live in alone, without splitting it with roommates.  At least in New York City area, the vast majority of new residential construction seems to be either luxury rentals or luxury condos.  Modestly priced housing stock has all been built at least 50 years ago, if not much more than that.  Most big cities are very liberal places, and unfortunately suffer from all the liberal excesses when it comes to policy-making.

I am not sure the utility of bring up NYC in a  general discussions about affordable housing. That is such an extreme outlier that any conclusions drawn based on it are almost certain to be wrong for 90+% of the people in question.

[DGuller]

It just doesn't pay off to build new affordable rental units.

Building unaffordable rental units does?

By affordable I obviously mean affordable to non-highly-compensated young professionals to live in alone, without splitting it with roommates.  At least in New York City area, the vast majority of new residential construction seems to be either luxury rentals or luxury condos.  Modestly priced housing stock has all been built at least 50 years ago, if not much more than that.  Most big cities are very liberal places, and unfortunately suffer from all the liberal excesses when it comes to policy-making.

I am not sure the utility of bring up NYC in a  general discussions about affordable housing. That is such an extreme outlier that any conclusions drawn based on it are almost certain to be wrong for 90+% of the people in question.

I've never been in San Francisco, but from what I'm hearing, it's even worse there.  For much the same reason.  Those are two pretty important hubs for professionals of all sorts.

[Razgovory]

I'm surprised nobody asked me about this.

[Berkut]

It just doesn't pay off to build new affordable rental units.

Building unaffordable rental units does?

By affordable I obviously mean affordable to non-highly-compensated young professionals to live in alone, without splitting it with roommates.  At least in New York City area, the vast majority of new residential construction seems to be either luxury rentals or luxury condos.  Modestly priced housing stock has all been built at least 50 years ago, if not much more than that.  Most big cities are very liberal places, and unfortunately suffer from all the liberal excesses when it comes to policy-making.

I am not sure the utility of bring up NYC in a  general discussions about affordable housing. That is such an extreme outlier that any conclusions drawn based on it are almost certain to be wrong for 90+% of the people in question.

I've never been in San Francisco, but from what I'm hearing, it's even worse there.  For much the same reason.  Those are two pretty important hubs for professionals of all sorts.

No, actually they aren't.

The vast, vast majority of young professionals don't live in either of the two most expensive urban areas in the country.

Why not take a look at prices in Kansas City, or Des Moines, or Phoenix? Denver? Dallas? Atlanta?

You of all people should no better than picking one end of the bell curve as a example to draw general conclusions from...

[DGuller]

Why not take a look at prices in Kansas City, or Des Moines, or Phoenix? Denver? Dallas? Atlanta?

All six of those metro areas taken together have the population of just the NYC metro area.

[Berkut]

Why not take a look at prices in Kansas City, or Des Moines, or Phoenix? Denver? Dallas? Atlanta?

All six of those metro areas taken together have the population of just the NYC metro area.

So? Do they have the same population of college graduates looking for jobs? What about the other 30 metro areas? Do they all add up to San Francisco and NYC? What about the 200 non-huge cities? What total percentage of college grads live in NYC such that it is reasonable to use NYC as the norm?

Are you *really* going to stick with this argument that when discussing the difficulty of new professionals finding affordable housing, we should just consider New York City as being a representative sample of where newly minted college graduates have to live, or else stay at home with mom and dad? The singular example in the entire country of the absolutely most screwed up real estate market (in this context) in the country, and a completely unique demographic, cultural, and economic example of "places new college graduates live in the USA"?

I suspect less than 1% of new graduates in the USA are looking to live in NYC, and less than 2% in NYC or SF. Or maybe it is 3 and 5 percent - I don't know. But it sure as hell isn't any number that justifies acting like the entire country is anything like the two most expensive places to live in the country.

[Berkut]

I don't even understand the utility of such arguments. You can't afford to live in NYC? Or DC? Or SF? Or San Diego?

Tough shit. Live somewhere else. There are plenty of places with much more reasonable real estate than the prime locations in the USA. That is why they are prime, because lots of people want to live there. Go live somewhere else, and if living in NYC is your life's dream, then work your ass off to make it happen, or deal with living in a hovel with your 6 best friends.

In either case, it isn't evidence that there is something fundamentally wrong with young professionals ability to afford a place to live that they cannot live in the most desirable and expensive real estate in the world.

[garbon]

I don't know. I mean I look at SF, which was already quite expensive, when I moved there in '07 and there's no way that as a recent college grad, I'd be able to afford to live there with anything similar to the standard of living I had then. I think it is a problem to have exciting, vibrant cities that have been (within less than a decade) priced out of the range of young professionals.

Not any major boo-hoo, this is a major problem - but distressing nonetheless.

[DGuller]

I don't even understand the utility of such arguments. You can't afford to live in NYC? Or DC? Or SF? Or San Diego?

Tough shit. Live somewhere else. There are plenty of places with much more reasonable real estate than the prime locations in the USA. That is why they are prime, because lots of people want to live there. Go live somewhere else, and if living in NYC is your life's dream, then work your ass off to make it happen, or deal with living in a hovel with your 6 best friends.

In either case, it isn't evidence that there is something fundamentally wrong with young professionals ability to afford a place to live that they cannot live in the most desirable and expensive real estate in the world.

If you're a professional, you kinda have to go where the jobs are.  You can't just move to some rural town in Mississippi, and then check out the local jobs market for software engineers.