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Comment by entropea | Hacker News Reader

Personally, what depresses me is that at 28 and in an excellent job making a little more than my train engineer (designing & fabricating train engines) father was in the late 90's and he had 3 kids, a house, two cars, and had no other sources of income or money. I can't ever see myself owning a home except somewhere extremely rural and requires a lot of costly basic remodeling, we've had changes & commodification of dating, loneliness, a planet becoming inhabitable with nobody really doing anything to address it. I did what I was told would lead to success, I've worked in multiple places with 5-7 years of experience in my IT field now, and I'm in the same spot I grew up with my grandparents in, barely making it with like an extra $40/mo for ramen & beer with a friend or two one night for entertainment. No debt. It's such a common story among my similarly aged friends too.

What do we really have to look forward to?

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"What do we really have to look forward to? "

More extreme weather, less water, more migration from countries where people have it worse than you, rise in political parties suggesting protectionism and anti-immigrant policies to combat the above, lower quality goods that don't last as long as people chase that margin down, less interesting and interest in art as people lack the spare time to come up with anything remotely non-mainstream, increasingly censored internet, rise in "tropical" diseases such as dengue fever & ebola in non-tropical countries due to climate change, more religion, more random civilian deaths at the hands of marginalised people and the police, people being prevented from travel/shop/work due to unchallengeable blacklisting by corporate CCTV networks with face/gait recognition resulting in homelessness.

Yep, there's a storm comin' alright.

The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution.

As an 18 year old I'm very aware of the fact that I may have to try very hard to ensure my survival these coming decades.

"The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution."

Except for the whole "economic collapse" thing. See Japan.

> and had no other sources of income or money

That is part of the issue though. It wasn't that long ago that that was true of most people (90s is pushing it a bit, but before?).

These days a lot of people are DINK, and you're competing with those. So not only you have to index the salary for inflation, you have to consider that you're competing with people who don't have a bunch of kids, and whom's spouse also brings in a salary.

So (not a real calculation, but just to make a point) assume the spouse would make the same amount of money and the kids are taking half of it, the DINK equivalent of income available for housing is now inflation + 4x that.

If the norm back then was: 1 income, multiple kids.

Now you have - 1 income, 1 or more kids (essentially screwed) - 1 income, no kids - 2 incomes, 1 or more kids - 2 income, no kids (so far beyond the first case that the former can't come close to competing).

Its also why if you are in the later camp and something happens (you lose your job or get sick and get a divorce), you're completely fucked.

The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some.

You can probably own a home if you want. You can travel the world if you want. You can meet a nice girl and cook food together in a cozy apartment. You can start brewing beer as a hobby with your friends. You can hike the Appalachian trail.

You can do a lot of things if you want.

> The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some.

The problem isn't that Chicago is going to become uninhabitable. The problem is that food supply for billions of people are going to be threatened, that will make the flood of refugees from Syria seem like a trickle.

The population growth of mainly Africa and parts of Asia is a problem but just like now it would be a problem of distribution. We can grow enough food even with the changing temperatures.

It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions.

> It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions.

Serious question: Have you ever lived in a country that was in the middle of a famine?

People 'find solutions' to that problem. They aren't pretty. Those solutions consist of 'rob', 'starve, or 'leave'.

If you live in the first world, your problem is going to be dealing with people who are taking option #3. We're barely capable of dealing with a flow of refugees from one or two countries.

Why do we need billions of people on this planet? Wouldn't it be better to cut down our population a bit? Earth cannot sustain infinite people..

I live in the bay area - I can meet a nice girl in the sense that I can also win the lottery tomorrow.

Besides, I have to compete with people on welfare who have a lot more time to chase girls than I do as the person paying for their welfare.

Would you please stop posting inflammatory and unsubstantive comments to HN, so we don't have to ban you again?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's the story of the millennials right now. Too many people then before and nobody building houses for them. I think most non-millenials know of it and there won't be any changes until there is an offset of the generation controlling policy around home building.

It never occurred to me that people expect new houses to be built for young people trying to get their first home. When I think of a young person buying their first home, I think of buying a 20+ year old home. New homes are for relatively wealthy people, usually people upgrading for the second or third time.

Race to the bottom. This is what millennial are always told. "Well you just need a BEGINNER job, it'll get better". But, there are enough homes for everyone in the country and 20-30 year old homes are fine.

Many of the 20+ year old homes in the metro Toronto area have been demolished to make way for either condos or mansions. But even if they weren't, the property values are so high that these homes would still be unaffordable. So, yes, new starter homes have to be built for there to be any on the market at a "starter home" price.

I feel like there's a cycle starting here that looks something like this:

"I can't afford to do the thing I want to do most."

"Then do something else."

If jobs in Toronto aren't paying enough to live there, move. Find a job making less money in a place where you can actually afford to live. I understand you may want the lifestyle afforded by being in a big city, but you're not owed that experience.

It is not so much new homes for young people, as increasing housing stock. It does not matter if the new homes are bought by the young, or if they are bought by existing homeowners; who then sell their old house. Either way the effect is an additional house on the market.

I have such a different perspective on this. Based on the zoning policies of the people in places like San Francisco, they are sending a clear signal they don't want me there. They aren't building sufficient housing such that someone like me could afford to live there. So I just don't. If I accept a job there that doesn't cover the rent, that's my fault.

The answer is to flee these places, move on to greener pastures, these are barren.

My second home was new development precisely because it was "easy" to lock in. I hate it. I want to live in an older home. But, when I was on the market for a place in a new area the older homes were going to cash buyers who were paying over the asking price. With new development, you put down a "small" (in terms of total costs) down payment and then get your loan approved. There's no real competition to speak of.

As a recent home buying millennial in the Chicago-land area, this article [1] is pretty accurate.

Basically it's a mix between boomers not selling, and millennial's not wanting what they are selling (because what they are selling is shit). When we bought our home, we were looking at old (built in 1940's) starter homes in the 200k to 250k range and it was a nightmare. Anything that was great was out of our price range, and anything decent to 'ok' would be sold in the first 24 hours. Most of the stuff that wasn't selling was just straight garbage - stuff that would require a lot of work and money (50k minimum) to get moved into the 'decent' category.

There are plenty of new houses being built, but you have to go an hour or an hour and half outside the city. I have a family member and friend who went this route and they love it, but that obviously leads to long commutes and other downsides.

[1]: https://www.chicagotribune.com/real-estate/ct-re-millennial-...

Do you live in a high COL area? There are plenty of places that are not "extremely rural" that you should have no problem owning a home. I'm an hour outside of Chicago living your Dad's 90's lifestyle on a solid but not spectacular IT salary that was a lot smaller when I bought my house eight years ago.

Very much this. There's an awful lot of the country that is extremely affordable without being extremely rural.

Perhaps we should be thankful so many people are unaware of the cities between the coasts, more people might come here and wreck it!

Everyone knows, they just don’t like the weather/geographic features/politics/laws/economic opportunities, and are willing to pay the higher prices.

That's all well and good. I don't begrudge anyone for spending their money how they wish. Just don't choose to spend your money on those amenities and then complain and act like it's some sort of generational injustice that you can't afford a home or family in one of the most expensive cities in the country.

I'm 20 miles outside of Seattle renting from a private owner, so comparable rent for the same 1br to where I grew up in suburb upstate NY. Shop at walmart, dollar general. Went back to smaller town NY last year to visit family, absolutely no difference in costs except electricity costs are higher there. Rents aren't cheaper than what I'm paying even in the 'flyover state' cities.

>Rents aren't cheaper than what I'm paying even in the 'flyover state' cities.

With all due respect, this sounds like complete horseshit. How much are you paying for rent?

Hmm.

"Reported Average Starting Salary" for a mechanical engineer in 1995 was $35,744, or $55,189 adjusted to 2015 (https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trend...). Federal taxes on that are about $8,078 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); let's double that to account for state and local taxes; $39,033 net after taxes, or $3,253/month.

Average rent in Seattle is $1,965 (https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/se...), but many neighborhoods are lower and more in tune with upstate New York (and "20 miles outside" is anywhere between Everett, Snoqualmie, or nearly to Tacoma); let's split the difference at $1,600. That leaves $1,653/month. Call it $53 for ramen and beer one night a month (that's a lot of ramen and beer) and there's $1,600 for everything else.

Add a car and student loans, a reasonable food and fitness budget, and that's all of it gone.

Good point. I never touch any of those so I keep forgetting. :-) (Well, I did have a car loan for a while...)

A $35,000 car loan, 60 mos, 5%, is about $660/mo (https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-... average student loan debt is $38,390 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt), 120 mos (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-ta...), 8% (https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-inte...) is about $466/mo. That totals to $1,126, leaving only $474 for vegetables and stuff.

You can crunch fake, sort-of-made-up numbers all day. The average man doesn't exist. My point is that it's certainly possible to be living paycheck-to-paycheck in a city with what was once a decent salary, even if you aren't blowing all your money on frivolous stuff.

The poster this is in reply to said they have no debt.

> I'm in the same spot I grew up with my grandparents in, barely making it with like an extra $40/mo for ramen & beer with a friend or two one night for entertainment. No debt. It's such a common story among my similarly aged friends too.

That's a good point I missed.

Have you tried living in places like Cleveland? It's far from rural and there are many livable single family houses available for <$150K.

Moving elsewhere would be entirely dependent on if I could secure full remote as there's just no way I can leave my current salary or I'd be making minimum wage in another city.

Why would you be making minimum wage in another city with 5-7 years IT experience? People in this thread are trying to tell you that someone with your experience can find a job and own a house in many other parts of the country.

Even within the Rust Belt, Cleveland is an outlier in that it’s decline was more recent and steep than the rest of the region. Cities like Pittsburgh and Buffalo started to decline in the 70s and bottomed out in the mid-2000s, but Cleveland sort of double-dipped in that the decline actually accelerated through the financial crisis and is only now starting to bottom out.

A lot of what I’ll call “third tier” cities (Cleveland, Boise, Reno, etc.) are facing housing shortages precisely because a lot of people were priced out of larger cities. So housing shortages are popping up in those places as well, driving up home prices dramatically. I know at least one of those cities where the average price of a 2br house jumped from $300k to $600k in 5 years.

As usual, the problems are NIMBYs and restrictive zoning with a heavy preference for single-family homes. But moving to smaller, cheaper cities is only a short-term solution. The long-term solution is to build more, denser housing.

The median listing price in Boise is $349,900 (https://www.zillow.com/boise-id/home-values/); Reno, $438,250 (https://www.zillow.com/reno-nv/home-values/; median selling price, $356,700). Cleveland's median listing price is $82,500.

Reno's listing price $231/ft^2 up from $151/ft^2 five years ago, but keep in mind that Reno was rather badly hit by 2008: median sales prices for 2br homes peaked at about $284,000 in 2006, bottomed at about $75,000 in 2011, and are currently back up to $271,000 (https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/market-trends...).

Thanks for that — I was off on the exact numbers, but I think the trend still holds true because those market fluctuations happened nationwide. People in smaller cities want to preserve that “small city” way of life, which makes it harder to build affordable housing to handle the influx of “economic refugees”. There’s enough tolerance for remote work that locality of employers is not as strong of an effect on housing prices as it used to be, which makes smaller cities really attractive.

It’s a problem that will get worse before it gets better, and the cities that can figure out how to provide housing that someone working minimum wage can afford will be the winners.

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