Great job with the antagonizing, clickbait title though. I'm guessing "My Tone-deaf Autobiography about How Irresponsible I am" was thrown out.
In my country, due to high house prices, adult professionals often buy their first house with money from their parents because they can't otherwise afford it. It's call "The bank of mum and dad". Is that irresponsible? Is it OK only after it's become common but was wrong for the first few people who did it?
If your parents helped you get your house, it’s not only a sign of likely coming from a privileged background (not many households in the US can just give their kids a downpayment on a house…) but it’s also a sign that you couldn’t even do what others have managed on their own. As many people do it without the bank of mom and dad and do it without having come from a background of privilege - it doesn’t look good.
Some will rationalize it and talk about keeping money in the family or what not - but most Americans see it from a mile away as somewhat shameful or regrettable. Keeping money in the family is also somewhat shameful in itself as it is something typically very privileged people do and it is seen as keeping the money out of the rest of us. (Creating royal families and a class of nobility essentially)
I can't speak for the UK but here in Germany people usually don't just "buy a house" in their 20s, because of the debt involved (guess we are very opposed to debt). In my experience that would happen only at least 10 years later, when you have saved up a sizable down payment. Also selling a house again is a really big deal, kinda rare. There's not a lot of switching, like I hear from some US friends.
So yes, this has nothing to do with support from your parents or general income/wealth bracket. If you are standing on your own feet, you move out to a cheap apartment, often for the first time with your partner. Also please remember that we have a lot less campus universities, people usually live in a small apartment in the city they are studying in (same with vocational training) and not on campus.
(Please correct me if you don't think that a sizable portion of people in the US buy a house before they are 30, no matter if they are "filthy rich" or just working a normal job)
And now for a completely made up theory: If you're going into debt for your degree maybe you don't care as much to get into more debt if you move into a house when starting a job, because you're already in debt. But if you got through uni without getting into debt, either you don't want to do that, or (more likely) you wouldn't even get a loan from the bank here, if you never worked before.
I’m not sure how much people put down for a payment in Germany but in US, it’s 3.5% to 20% as the norm. 20% being what was traditionally done but more and more people are finding ways to put down less and it is financially more optimal a lot of times as real estate is appreciating quickly and the market is booming too.
There are also some tax incentives for house ownership that aren’t available to renters. The US is setup for homeowners, not renters.
But I don’t think all of this is the main reason why they try to not rely on the bank of mom and dad… the individualism thing is more to do with that.
In fact it may be the opposite correlation, as those that can partake in outdoorsy activities frequently are probably better off than average.