Yeah- its because Millenials don't save money anymore- they blow it on alcohol and other self-gratification activities. 

That's a pretty ugly looking stucco box.

Got my house 2 years ago but technically fall short of the millenial cut-off DOB so I'm safe from all that self-gratification.

All those hedonistic millennials blowing their vast fortunes on hookers and beer instead of housing. Go figure.

I don't get the bitterness in this thread.

With property prices soaring everywhere (even 3rd world countries lol), why are millenials held responsible for not wanting to own their own when they can simply pay rent?

Besides, with free movement of trades/goods, owning a property is more of a liability to most.

Not everyone wants to be master of one's domain.

Great maybe with the prices inching down more millenials will have the chance to buy. Or maybe they'll just keep wasting their money on those avocado smash toasts to drown the misery of not being able to realistically afford anything within their lifetimes.

There are a lot of reasons millennials like myself aren't buying homes.

- Most have large amounts of student debt and can't afford to add a mortgage on top

- Job scarcity and lack of job security in many industries (for example the tech industry's extremely high turnover) leads to uncertainty and unwillingness to settle down

- Homes are much more expensive relative to income today, especially if one wants to live in the city (most millennials do)

That being said, as a millennial I don't think renting forever is a smart idea.  But I know many of my peers prefer to live an untethered lifestyle, at least for now.  I'm in a relatively good position (minimal debt, good practical experience before graduation), and I'm still worried about my prospects of owning a home in the future.

I'm in my senior year and have begun looking around for places to apply for AE jobs.  Out of the dozen firms I looked at, only one entry-level AE position was advertised, the rest were for people with 5-10 and 20+ years experience.  That scared me.  Even with 1.5 years experience and a masters degree I worry if I'll be able to find good work.

Long story short, the millennial home ownership problem is an extension of the employment problem, I believe. 

Market is still hot here in Atlanta. I actually close on my first condo next Friday. Reason I wasn't in a rush to buy was because my rent was so low and I was saving crazy money. Then I turned 30 and figured it was time to be an adult and not have a roommate anymore.

havnt you people ever heard of Robert Kiyosaki's Rat Race concept?

http://www.hyperink.com/Key-Co...

love all the excuses... what a financial blueprint ya'll have... also a good read: http://www.millionairemindeven...

I think it is ironic that the author coins the term "financial blueprint" as I am sharing this with fellow architects...

so I do take offense to people who immediately call me a classist when in fact there are significant issues with how people think about money in the architectural community and at large.

Perhaps the millennials need to do what out ancestors often did: build "half a house" and add onto it later. Build a small two bedroom house with a living/dining room, no garage at first, then years later add onto it. In my part of the Shenandoah Valley you often see beautiful homes with a log 'addition' that was actually the original house.  Building a smaller house means the millennials could afford quality materials like wood flooring and copper plumbing and top line heating and cooling systems from the start. The stumbling blocks would be to be able to afford a lot big enough for the eventual finished house and the fact that many bounce around the country like pin-balls balls seeking employment.  (The hideous house pictured is in Miami. Miami does have some beautiful modern homes as well as some with a Caribbean influence, of course. No idea where this thing came from)

BulgarBlogger 

Also a good read is "No excuses" by Brian Tracy 

Here is the Bay Area, only the high paid programmers can afford to buy - typical listings start at $929,000 in Oakland to 1.5mil in SF with long waiting lists - then you get outbid by some cash purchase investor from China - Americans need to learn how to save and invest 

Xenakis-

I think it is ironic you bring up the title "No Excuses." Even without reading this book, your first sentence above is an "excuse."

Here's my point: 

Many blame the rich for paying lower income taxes because they the bulk of their money through investments in capital gains. Many wealthy people I know collect passive income from rent they collect on their properties. In other words - many wealthy people get wealthy not from their occupation, but from their investments. 

Bottom line: with an average salary of about 70-80k, architects, millennials, etc. should stop thinking about the concept of making money in such a linear way... again it boils down to their "financial blueprint" i.e. how they think about money... Rather than diversifying their sources of income, many just think about making money from one source. If they don't have the blueprint to save or make money from other sources, of course it would be natural for many to be able to no afford to buy houses/properties in the 900k range... 

Moral of the story: diversify your income sources... 

Well.... I'm taking a longer lunch than usual so I can walk to the large liquor store and stock up on craft beers. I've got a home bar to stock!

Yeah millenials are obviously just too 'stupid' to save. Obviously there is loads of $$$ leftover when living paycheck to paycheck in a 'cheap' mid tier city, paying off loans for a 'cheap' state degree, begging for a meager cost of living/inflation 'raise' every year, facing ever higher rents and prices for basic goods. Those moron millenials what ever is wrong with them.

The few millenials I know who purchased homes did so because a parent gifted them the down payment (and usually helped pay for college / minimize student loans). But obviously the rest of the millenials are just stupid and lazy. Duh

I don't blame the rich, I blame capitalism.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

not sure what to tell you archnine... my parents immigrated here with nothing; lived in horrible conditions at first; yet have somehow surpassed most people who have rooted themselves in the small communities you are talking about. Its hard, but definitely possible. Your answer to hard times, obviously looks like a lame excuse to why you can't solve your problems. Perhaps you just lack the determination to life yourself up by the bootstraps like many immigrants have. Entitled much?

For the record bulgar, I'm in the midst of defeating the odds personally, having grown up dirt poor and already having achieved middle class status.

My point is that on a macro scale things have gotten far more difficult for this generation, and your blanket statements about bootstrapping do not work for a large share of the population. A great degree of pure luck and extreme tenacity is required to maintain a semblance of middle classdom whereas the generation before could more easily achieve that same level with far less effort, schooling and debt.

The adage that 'hard work' will gain anyone access to a quality life is outdated and the system needs to adapt to respond to the drastic changes in educational costs and dwindling job opportunities. It simply isn't sustainable. It's no secret the rich poor gap today is at its greatest since immediately preceding the Great Depression. The fact that anecdotally you or I may have found a way to persevere ignores the many who cannot no matter how much work they put in.

Not sure why this turned to millienials. I believe the article said sales were down because of low supply.

However, I do think an increasing number of people just aren't interested in owning a home, particularly of the 2,000+sf variety out in suburbia that was the norm 25-30 years ago. Older folks and younger suburbanites just can't believe this, but I do think there is a fundamental shift in the market, and it likely isn't going back to the way it was anytime soon.

Yes Chris! Once again we have a mindset and experience in common. It's always negotiable!

To add, I've read about people prioritizing debt over investments. Some sense of accomplishment and gratification seeing the number go down.

Ideally, whenever possible take the min loan payment- especially on the ones that are slated for forgiveness down the line, and focus on 401k, at the very least up to the matched amount, plus any other tax sheltered/discounted investments you can afford. If possible get these tax sheltered investments into an account you can borrow from for your down payment, and pay yourself back as quickly as possible.

Of course, this is not possible for everyone at ever time, but it's the way to go if one doesn't have relatives to help out with purchases.

fictional\_/Christopher

You have a poor man's financial blueprint... "don't ever feel bad for having debt"? I mean seriously- have you no shame??! 

On a macro scale, things have gotten tougher overall for people in this business, not just for millennials. I was born 5 years before the milennial cut-off year, but still have significant problems paying mortgage every month.

Bulgar, I've heard of Kiyosaki and have seen many of his interviews and talks.  His story is inspiring and he is an eloquent speaker.  Unfortunately the problem is greater than people not working hard enough.  There are systemic changes occurring in education, business, technology and finance that is making the world quite different than it was 30, or even 15 years ago.  

Yes, you can pick out stories of lazy people and other stories of successful people to justify whatever ideology you happen to be married to, but the overwhelming majority of those entering the workforce today recognize that there are real issues in today's economy that should be addressed.

That is why we call it Capitalism- you capitalize on your own merits. Otherwise we would be living in socialism. 

Sure, if you stop at "that's how capitalism works," everything subsequent seems justified.  The larger question is, does capitalism work for the majority of people?  If the world changes, should the system change too?  

Let's extend the problem out ~100 years.  When robotics come along and make manual jobs scarce, and AI comes along and makes technical jobs scarce (yours and mine), a few people will get very rich and the rest will be out of work.  That's a lot of bootstraps to pull up.

At the risk of sounding like an apologist, I think capitalism is the best system we have.  But you have to recognize that economic policy has more nuance than 100% Pure Ideology.  We live in a mix of capitalism and socialism, and mixing ideas from various ideologies is healthy.  

socialism is just a more corrupt form of capitalism where the govt gets to do more fucking. (see Europe for reference)

Europe is not Socialist.

I thought this thread was about home sales.

Bulgar, I agree with what you are saying about saving your money but 1) I'd need to save far past a 20% down payment just to ensure my debt to income ratio was acceptable to a bank. Since even some of the lowest end condos  where I live are 400k+ I'd need around 120-140k as a down payment. If I were to save even 30% of my income every year (quite a feat with student loans and high rents) with the typical starting salary of 40k inching up to 60-70k in 5-6 years it would still take 7-12 years to save that down payment. Meanwhile you've contributed nothing to retirement. So yes one day I will own, but it's going to take quite a bit more time than other generations. 

archi-dude: what did I say above about depending only on in ome source?? Rich people don't do that, and it doesn't take to be wealthy do that... you just have ti be smart about the way you do business...

one income source*

Bulgar doesn't seem to understand or has forgotten what it's like to be working poor - read too much month left at the end of your money. Hard to invest and diversify when there is nothing leftover after all the bills are paid. There's only so many things a person can cut from their expenses and still make it to work on time. A lot of people are working multiple jobs just to get by and it still isn't enough.

Your attitude reminds me of this crazy dude who said he lived in his car for half a decade to avoid paying rent to pay off loans. Is that the kind of extreme we should normalize for people in the wealthiest country in the world?

Note this person did not have an office job that required regular grooming/bathing, complained of severe muscle and skeletal pains, and had zero dating nor social life the entire time. He was also pretty nuts from having been basically feral for so long.

the upshot here is that we all need to invest - at one firm, 3 years ago, I moonlighted at two other offices to make ends meet

If you are going to have a second job, let it NOT be in architecture. Thank me later.

Instead of just designing buildings for others, you folks ought to also design your financial futures... as  supposedly "creative" individuals, think outside the box for making extra money... you all are basically saying, "the majority of peope are mediocre, so you ought to have a system for that works for them, because everything else is just too damn impossible." I have never settled for less and I have never been taught to just accept the circumstances and adversities in my life as a matter of fact that I can't change. You all sound so jaded and beaten by life, and that is what is so sad and frustrating because it is precisely that attitude that drives people like you to elect government officials that support policies that require hard-working high-achieving people like me (and Im sure many of you as well) to pay higher taxes. Stop the damn entitlement, suck it up, use your brain, and come up with ways to beat the system...

last point: not everyone is meant to win; competition always yields a winner, one way or another... So when someone is beat, whether in business or otherwise, maybe what you people think we ought to do is give him/her a participation trophy in the form of some kind of entitlment money or a handout... to do so would go against the very concept of competition... you just have to make sure you are always going to try your best to beat out the odds, whatever they melay be in your life. No one owes you anything.

what's the point of having fuck you money if you can't say "fuck you"?

Bulgar, you keep going on about "what rich people do."  Are you rich?  Is it what you do?  Or is it what you're regurgitating from self-help seminars?  Your vocabulary on this subject is typical of motivational speakers.

Yes, in life there are winners and losers.  But if the system produces a thousand winners and hundreds of millions of losers, is it working?  Is everything well and good, as long as you're the one on top?

Also, you may have worked very hard in your life, I have as well.  But success ultimately takes help from one source or another, and a lot of luck.  If you can't acknowledge that then it's not worth continuing this conversation.

Tweets about money problems.

Damn, forgot to buy myself a home last month...now will have to buy two next month.

MJ- By-the-way: the "fuck you" line was from the show "Billions."

Schoon- no its not "what I do". Yes- I acknowledge that success takes a lot of luck and help from others. But it takes a lot of personal assertiveness and show of ambition. I just don't believe one should sit back and say "oh well; woe with me- I was born poor and that's the way it'll be."

I think we have a lot of altruists here. I don't believe in altruism. I don't believe that human beings are meant to be altruistic. The very concept of changing the system so it works for everyone is something that even the best-intentioned people, when it boils down to it, are capable of dealing with. Philosophically, that is why Karl Marx said that people can never truly achieve ideal communism- because they can never give according to their abilities and take according to their needs. I digress...

So if we acknowledge that we, as a species, are not innately altruistic, always deep down want to be ahead of others, then we can also acknowledge that we are not truly capable of changing the system so it works for everyone. 

Therefore, if we can't change the system so it works for everyone, I would rather be the one that is on top, or at the very least, a little ahead of most. And I guess because I have come to this realization, I just don't understand why so many people can just kick back and say/feel what I said above (oh well; woe with me- I was born poor and that's the way it'll be) and not want to change. Such a cynical attitude is something I don't respect; it is not a value I hold. 

That being said, I am capable of being compassionate. But compassion, as a value that I do hold, is not the same as compromising. And I think a lot of people don't understand how to it is possible to be compassionate while being uncompromising. 

Well, MJ - I guess we are at a philosophical impasse. Entitlement to compassion seems to contain a fundamental paradox. 

Compassion is not an entitlement. It's only a paradox because you place judgement ahead of compassion. 

Oh and sorry if I offended anyone. As you can imagine, reading things online come off way different than if you are having similar conversations live with your friends. ;)

Changing the system so that more people who work hard have an opportunity at a decent lifestyle and that more people who make egregious sums of money they could never realistically spend must pay back into the very system which allowed them to have that money is not the same as handouts for all or for the 'lazy'.

Bulgar, what many people are stating here is that there is a middle ground in economic policy. You seem to have a very binary view of the way money can and has historically operated in this country. In fact the most healthy sort of economy (the kind we had from the 50s-80s) is one in which the majority lie in the middle of the income dispersion, on a sort of bell curve. Ford for example, realized this and thus paid his workers enough to buy his products as it would generate more profit for himself and the auto industry. How many cars are a handful of executives really going to buy vs every person at the company?

The problem with an increasing divide in the wealth gap, which historically in the US is due to an increasing number of subsidies or handouts given to the upper income brackets (mortgage credits, 401ks, minimal dividend taxes, lowering estate taxes etc etc) is that the market runs out of people to buy its products and eventually very few are actors in the economy (people can't buy homes then architects stop getting hired because there's no one to buy their products, for example). So if you want to talk about 'handouts' yes I agree it's time we stop handing out money to the rich at the expense of the poor and middle because a dwindling middle is a recipe for economic disaster.