The problem with renting is that it's so expensive that it's hard to stop renting. How, in this market, do you save enough to buy when you can't afford to pay less rent? Most people are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place.
It's truly sad to see the price of owning or renting a home rising faster than most people's ability to keep pace. There's a major homelessness crisis in California, and one of the causes is very high home prices and rents.
If you just happened to have a spare $200k lying around to make a 20% down payment on a million dollar condo in the Bay Area in the low interest rate era, you'd be paying the same as a renter, but fixed, and with equity.
That is with me owning my own house i also have a sibling that will most likely end up being a forever renter. His rent has increased so much the past 6~7 years. That he now pays way more in rent then i do for my mortgage like almost €150~200 more in a shittier neighbourhood in the same city.
This is because the cost of everything except labour has increased, forcing many to try and do more with less. It is completely and utterly unsustainable and I doubt anybody young will ever experience the kind of prosperity that came after WW2.
You can't even rely on getting a decent white collar job and climbing up the ladder any more - loyalty is expected from an employer but no longer offered in return.
Calculate how many hours should average Joe work to buy 100 gallons of gasoline, to buy a fridge, to buy 100 kg of chicken breast now vs then.
Housing outside of cities has also risen considerably.
Many who make it have the key advantage of having been nurtured into that outcome across their first 2-3 decades of life, by a strong or effective family foundation. And from there, naturally, the so-called network effect opens that gap yet wider.
So it stands to reason that, for those outside that advantaged demographic, some degree of 'breaking the mould' is often required, in order to raise oneself up.
And there are so many ways.
Conversely, so many factors of inertia and lock-in. The average salary is so easily spoken for, in a life of weekly car payments, weekly phone payments and expensive phone plans, digital subscriptions for music, movies, TV, apps, games, quizzes, every spare dollar going to the endless and essential bargains on Amazon and Aliexpress, 1 x coffee or 1 x beer @ $5 a pop, throwaway fashion, neverending rubbish processed and convenience food in the trolley, while paying others to cook and deliver us food, a brand new service entering the market every day with an accompanying "small fee". A million ways and reasons to turn your money into the profit of others.
I understand that this is just the way things are right now, but we need more housing so that way fewer people have to resort to these measures.
Tons of people move to find work.
How much additional money would your parents have were they not paying for your food? How much could they earn on AirBnB if they had that room spare?
It’s extremely frustrating to me when people suggest this policy as if everyone has access to this privilege when most people, in the Bay area especially, don’t. (Hence the snark, for which I apologize, I am sure I have blind spots on privileges I had that you didn’t)