re: Millennials will spend 45% of income on rent before age 30

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This is the second biggest issue besides actual entry level house stock


If you make good money then fine...but in general the cost of mostly everything (not just housing) is outpacing wage growth.

Something is going to have to give eventually.

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Actually, not quite.

What has happened is this:

A) The general cost of tradeable goods (electronics, cars, food, you name it) has gone down and down and down in real terms over the last forty years or so.

B) Partially because of a consequence of (A), a good chunk of the American public has a lot more dollars in real terms to spend on things that used to compose a much lower chunk of one's paycheck instead of paying 20% of your monthly income just on groceries.

C) These extra real dollars generally go to upscale the consumer's non-tradeable goods (real estate, education, healthcare, etc.). Demand puts upward pressure on prices and the cycle keeps on continuing.

There is an almost perfect correlation between items that are tradeable and non-tradeable and goods and services that have become less expensive in real terms in the last two generations and goods and services that have become more expensive over the last two generations.

In other terms, real estate is not going to get any cheaper any time soon as long as our population is growing. Building out and reforming zoning codes (in places like San Francisco) can relieve some of that price pressure, but as I and others have noted, that comes with much higher transportation and time opportunity costs, so the market will support a build out only so far. I bet Gen Z ends up paying 50% or more of their income in rent.

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A couple who makes what my significant other and I make can buy a pretty nice condo in Chicago based off that rule, but we'd certainly be stretching ourselves on the West Coast, even if we were paid what people who do what we do out there are paid

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I did a cost of living adjustment with San Francisco the other day and my salary would be 42% higher on average and my col would be 90% higher. I was mainly just curious. I'm not a West Coast kind of guy.

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A couple who makes what my significant other and I make can buy a pretty nice condo in Chicago based off that rule, but we'd certainly be stretching ourselves on the West Coast, even if we were paid what people who do what we do out there are paid

I did a cost of living adjustment with San Francisco the other day and my salary would be 42% higher on average and my col would be 90% higher. I was mainly just curious. I'm not a West Coast kind of guy.

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It can definitely go both ways.

If we took a salary adjustment to move back to my hometown, we'd make about 11% less but our dollars would go 24% further. I would take that in a fricking heartbeat, but unfortunately, you can only be in my profession in about 8 to 10 cities and my S/O in only about 3 cities. I have to be near a major international airport that has lots of connections, for starters. That will hopefully change somewhere down the line.

I know more and more people that are working remotely and living wherever they want within the contiguous lower 48 states. I think that’s the trend for the future, rather than living in the same city that you work in.

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I know more and more people that are working remotely and living wherever they want within the contiguous lower 48 states. I think that’s the trend for the future, rather than living in the same city that you work in.

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It's happening more and more in my industry, for sure, but you have to get to a point to where you're established (say, at least three to five years doing excellent work) and you still have to travel to client sites. Being somewhere near a major cluster of F500 businesses helps.

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I think it stems from a lot of people born in say 1985 not really thinking that their upbringing/childhood was very similar to a 24 year old.

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A 28 year old was born in 1989-1990. Millennials tend to be described as 1981-1994 round about. That guy is without any shred of doubt a millennial.

No I get that. And people definitely call college kids today millennials but they aren't. Gen z is late 90s early 2000s.

I agree

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they've created a sub-generation for 77-84 or so 

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Even that is odd to me. My sister was born in 76 and we are 14 months apart but I'm supposed to believe we are part of different generations?

I saw a post on here about the Oregon Trail generation and it was like 80-85 or somewhere around there. I was born in 78 and had never heard of Oregon Trail before. Another poster from 79 said the same.