Why is the number of first-time US homebuyers at a generational low?
www.theguardian.com
Young Americans are holding off on buying a home, with the average age in 2024 being a record high of 38

Typically, when demand drops, prices follow. But even when the number of buyers dropped, prices kept climbing. The median price of a single-family home hit record highs in 2024, and has only continued going up. In May, the median price was $427,800 – up from $357,100 in 2021, when home prices started to climb.

At today’s prices, a family would need to earn $126,700 a year to afford monthly payments on an average home purchased in 2024, up from $79,300 annually in 2021, according to a report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

jagoff Economists say a historically low inventory of existing homes, coupled with sluggish new construction, is keeping prices high.

All over my are there are shit tons of new mcmansion starting at $350-400k

There isn’t a damned shortage. There is a shortage of affordable homes. Who is afording these mcmansion is beyond me because the jobs in the area don’t pay nearly enough and there can’t be that many upper management / C-suite families that can afford them. I am seeing banks offering Zero down / no PMI like in 2008. Like they are baking another housing crash.

  • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    19·
    7 days ago

    Who is affording these is beyond me

    nobody is. most of them sit empty, with just a baseline of maintenance, so line goes up.

    at some point the desperate masses are going to just move themselves into empty neighborhoods. i suppose at some point they’ll just have armed patrol drones

  • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    7 days ago

    One of the things I hate most about capitalism is how it makes you a psychopath. Whenever I read stuff like this, I find myself literally hoping the market crashes so all this money we’ve spent years saving up will let us get out of renting forever. It makes you wish everyone will suffer, including yourself, so that you can time the market and scrape out something.

  • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    7 days ago

    I live in one of the most “affordable” parts of my city, and there are mobile homes in my area selling for over $400,000. I am not in a coastal state or a top ten metro area. Shit is insane and unsustainable.

      • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        5·
        6 days ago

        Also called a “manufactured home.” They’re pre built structures that are meant to be trailered to a plot of land and then dropped there (either with or without a standard foundation) and then hooked up to water/sewer/power/gas. The build quality is generally quite a bit lower than a standard (“stick built”) house, because they need to be light enough to move around and totally self-contained. They only tend to last 20-30 years before they start to fall apart. If they’re well made and newer, though, you wouldn’t necessarily know from looking at the inside that they’re not regular houses.

        Historically, they’ve been a way for lower income people to own a home (at least in the US), but that’s receding rapidly. When people talk about “trailer parks,” they mean mobile home complexes in which the residents (usually) own the structure but pay rent on the land, though in some areas (like where I live) lots of folks buy the plot of land and either drop a home on it or get the one that’s already there. You can buy the structures for $100,000 or less (though they can definitely go higher), but the insane price of land and real estate price gouging is pushing up the overall cost into the mid six-figures in some places, even for units that are a decade or more old.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          Thanks

          The build quality is generally quite a bit lower than a standard (“stick built”) house

          Wow that sounds pretty awful considering the normally awful standard of homebuilding in US.

          They only tend to last 20-30 years before they start to fall apart.

          Same as the intent for Krushchevka in socialist countries, but Khrushchevka stand strong till today (there’s even one in Germany that survived direct jet fighter crash and people still live there) and the prices often outstrips the modern private development houses which quite often starts to crack even before anyone actually moves in.

          Overall conclusion for “mobile homes”: how fucking dare muricans joke about houses build from prefabs while they have this shit.

          • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
            4·
            5 days ago

            Yeah, modern home building quality in the US is also shit. I watched one go up few months ago near where I work, and you could see that it was basically 100% press board. I’m sure it sold for $550,000.