But that just speaks of a bigger problem, that of people who have children and buy houses they can't afford. Most people, minority or otherwise, can find a job if they had none of these ties they can't afford. I realize that's a simplistic view but I think that's what it boils down to.
If people spent even just a few moments thinking about their own future and prospects they might decide against purchasing a home, having kids, getting a new car and so on.
People's concerns start from food, housing and many other immediate pressing issues, before it gets to identity and purpose. (i.e. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs)
It is not very possible to buy a house with high interest rates. So, most of your earnings go to rental cost.
You shape your life with what you have left to spend.
A lot of people are looking at the utter destruction of freedom that raising a family is today, and choosing not to. It's not just the price of real estate, it's inflation too. Roll into that the lack of job security and negative real interest rates and it's no wonder people can't think about a future.
One of the most basic needs when planning for a future is the prospect that the future will be better than the past. It's now very difficult to arrange that independently of constant advancement at work and constant advancement at work requires tremendous amounts of effort.
People are getting squeezed from both sides. I feel this myself, and I'm doing quite well statistically; white, male, educated, highly skilled and gainfully employed.
Second statement is an oversimplification of many in that scenario; e.g. my mother. Single Mom for 30 years, built a career, bought a house in her mid 40s. 2008 recession erased her career, unemployed for 5 years after, now rebuilding. Still has a mortgage on her townhouse.
Let's not assume poor decision making when there are plenty of factors outside of the average blue collar workers control that directly impacted their ability to to the right thing.
When in tension, the needs of people who have a job but cannot buy a home ought outweigh the needs of people whose financial strategy hinged on housing speculation so badly that their income cannot deal with the fallout.
Of all things the state should be encouraging or building safety nets for, housing speculation should be in last place.
Actually, when I hire people I don't recommend them mortgaging their life, regardless of what I might think about affording or not to pay for their services either now or in an immediate future. In a surrounding changing world, instead of gaining leverage to better cope with its changing nature, people instead take mortgages! And guess what - they don't do it in their most clear minds. They always do this life-changing decision dreaming. That is what makes things overpriced and unaffordable without a mortgage.
I don't think the desire to get ahead is always wrong. We still compete against each other in many ways. How would the author feel if instead of being able to afford the nice house 5 minutes from work, he had to buy one 45 minutes away because he was priced out? How do you decide who gets the nice house if not for money?
It seems society is content with the notion that I must do my ow due diligence when buying a home, but for whatever reason that responsibility seems to slide away when I'm dealing with social media. Why is that?
Counterpoint: I'm not content with opaque mortgage or auto loan terms (although my last auto loan was actually quite simple). I don't think you can generalize how "society" feels in this way.
This also happens to be a recent hot button issue. If you talked to someone in, oh say, late 2008, mortgages might've been on the front of their mind.
I agree that I was overly snarky, though only slightly. I disagree that Kids & Mortgage is still very common. Maybe just common, and even then, there's often additional nuance (second marriage, renting not mortgage, etc.)
I suspect the economy plays a large role. If you can't afford a house or don't have much financial security in general, that makes the idea of adding another large expense less interesting.
you've implicitly bought into the finance perspective, but it's not the only valid perspective by a long shot. consider at least the humanist perspective that people need to live in housing, and that it's not all about money and wealth. this is a critical weakness of many economics perspectives in relation to how the world really works, and an active area of research in economics.
While Peters point of view may be seen as dated and chauvinistic, I do feel like the absolute necessity of dual income living today, especially in the city, has had a huge negative impact on quality of family life.
I don't even have kids and I recognize what he's talking about. By the time me and my partner are home (7pm) and have prepped, cooked and cleaned up from dinner, there's no time or energy left to do anything productive or thoughtful.
It's just market forces at work of course. Once couples become DINKs, and bid up the cost of housing, the single income families simply can't compete and become extinct. Median house prices are 10x median income. Banks will lend you <5x income. For most here now (the UK), buying a property on a single income is a mathematical impossibility without first saving for a decade, living with your parents until you're 30, and then taking out a 30 year variable rate mortgage.
If everyone took this advice, then the status games would change, because everyone would be more frugal and it wouldn't be about eating lunch with the popular kids.
But because society as a collective has decided on these games, and decided that you need credit cards, and need lattes that cost about $0.10 in raw materials at home, then everyone has to play these games.
Most importantly, if everyone refused getting mortgages, house prices would crash. But because mortgages (and low interested by the fed) have made housing more affordable to everyone, they've pushed up prices to where you're back to square one, except you have to pay interest as well as the house's price, rather than waiting until you've saved up the price. This goes back 50-100 years though.
Here's an another option: start your own business, so you don't have to play these career games.
There are a million options, it's just that they are harder, especially on a personal discipline level, which is not very popular these days.
Sure. If you're being rational, it would possibly make sense to buy a 2 bedroom house or even a 3 bedroom if you think you might need an extra room for a kid plus a home office.
But it's not as rational to insist that you need 4 bedroom house with a three car garage inside a top school district when you aren't even married/pregnant yet. Yes, life can change fast, but paying a premium mortgage for a top school district that you won't even use for 6 years minimum (if you suddenly got pregnant today) and an extra bedroom that is going to go unused for at least several years (second pregnancy, perhaps)? I can't see how that's rational.
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