Good things to remember. Forget McMansions though – a primary reason that many in the US feel poorer than their parents or grandparents is that, even with two incomes, they cannot afford to buy any house at all (even a townhouse or modest "starter" home) within 100 miles of their place of employment.
This is social media bias. Homeownership rates in the US are fine except in a few coastal areas, but those areas are where all the influencers and journalists live.
Also, the US is extremely not in a recession and currently has the strongest economic performance in decades or ever. (Yes, for young people. And for poorer people most of all.) It was of course in a recession in 2008 and in 2020.
But, /other English speaking countries are in recessions/, and their housing crises are worse than ours. Part of what's happening is that you're picking those posts up because they're in English and not realizing they're in London.
> Of course it's not just housing that has become more expensive – health care and higher education costs have also outpaced inflation for decades.
This one's partly natural for Baumol reasons - basically, having any highly paid industry near you raises the price for any service. But it's also partly the US has many bad ideas intended to create explicit limits on supply in healthcare, like limited residency seats and certificates of need for hospitals.
I live in a somewhat rural area, and while I haven't gotten the house appraised recently, I talked to someone not too long ago and he said houses(really the land) are going for roughly 10x what I got it for (in 2001). I couldn't afford it if I wanted, now. But sure, home ownership is just fine, that's why I'm the only homeowner* in my peer group. (*technically in a trust, for me)
The reason homeownership is fine is that there was a burst of home purchases in 2021 right before interest rates went up, and the US has fixed rate mortgages. We know it's fine though because of national statistics, eg:
Sounds like you own it though. So you could afford an equally priced piece of land if you sell that one. Most people's houses are the largest component of their net worth, so it of course looks bad if you leave it out of the calculation.
(This is why blocking housing construction is bad for the elderly though - it makes it hard to downsize so you can't use your housing net worth towards retirement as easily.)
Other approaches which many people do include having your parents help with the down payment or inheriting.
And of course land value tax would solve this. So would upzoning, which would allow 10x more productive use of the land.
While I do appreciate the injection of statistics in this (really), it doesn't change the fact of my house being inheritance and approximately 0 of my local friends owning their own homes despite being of the age where they should at least have a mortgage. Maybe things are going well overall, and I'm glad. But I don't see it.
It's best to enjoy experiences and having perfect weather is fantastic. I'd live in Colorado if I could, but I'm stuck in Mississippi for reasons. The weather is pretty decent(way too hot in summer, way too many tornados, no snow most years which sucks); worst part of living here is other people but I'm pretty sure that's everywhere.
