So much of the most comfortable housing stock in America is single-family "McMansion" type homes. The type of suburban detached house that likely the majority of middle-class American millennials grew up in.
For a young adult in the current economic climate, the only way you're living in one of these cushy homes is if you're living with your parents.
You can't rent one very easily, since they can't be divided up into multiple units or rented at all due to zoning and HOAs. Not to mention it's not typical to be a renter in these neighborhoods to begin with, so even finding a rental is nearly impossible in some areas.
Then of course, after the housing bubble crashed and the subsidies went away, a mortgage for one of these became a big challenge to achieve, and who has the savings sitting around for upkeep and emergency maintenance?
Boomer parents, and a handful of lucky gen-xers are pretty much the only people who could comfortably acquire and hold onto these houses, so it only makes sense that sticking to them like glue is the best strategy if you wanted one.
And there's also the fact that it's just not cool to live in the 'burbs, where you grew up, in the first place. The mental justification has to be "well I'm saving money at least". Saving money, means crashing with the parents. After all, it's "just temporary".
Those are at least my very subjective observations that might be overlooked in that study...
> For a young adult in the current economic climate, the only way you're living in one of these cushy homes is if you're living with your parents.
This is a very coastal/urban-centric view, IME. The large majority of my social circle growing up in suburban Dallas (a) still lives in suburban Dallas and (b) found a detached home before age 30 (if not 25). I moved away from the suburbs, and to a big coastal city, and so did almost "everyone I know" out here (with a lot of selection bias), but judging from that and housing prices in those crazy markets doesn't work for extrapolating to the country as a whole.
Of the ones still living at home, I don't know anyone thinking "it would be just as cool to have my own place, so might as well save money." The causality is reversed: "I'm broke, so might as well save as much money as possible, and my parents' place is big."
"Not cool" starts being a lot less relevant pretty quickly after getting out of college for most people, IME. Suburban houses are bigger than apartments. They're less noisy. They're more pet friendly. You have a garage for storage/workshopping/whatever. You have more space for starting a family. All those reasons still apply as much as they ever did, the big change from ten years ago to today is economic, not around coolness.
It's more than uncool. It means giving up a huge portion of your life to commute to work, to your kid's school, and to the grocery store. It's definitely not coolness that keeps me living in a neighborhood where I can walk to the grocery store and to work. It massively increases the hours of my life.
If you're talking about being able to claim mortgage interest on your taxes then that hasn't gone away yet. I don't know what other kinds of home owner subsidies exist.
I wonder if many project builders have tried promoting plans that make a larger house easier to compartmentalise either for separate living for teenage kids, or to sublet to someone else? e.g., separate entrance and main rooms, perhaps shared but lockable laundry, etc.
In other countries it's common to live with your parents until you're married, or even a little bit past that. In America it's looked down upon. Nothing wrong with staying home, saving money (even if you pay rent to your parents, it's cheaper than living on your own). You can save money, pay for school, or not be forced to work a job by staying at home longer.
Yes, but if the current young generation of americans is poorer than the preceding generations (a conclusion I think is inescapable at this point), then it is worthwhile considering why.
The world is certainly richer than it was in the 80s. We are vastly more efficient at producing all sorts of goods. So, then, why is the current generation of Americans unable to afford what was available to the middle class previously?
I believe that the answers to this crucial question are obscure and are unlikely to be found in conventional economic and political analysis.
That's true, in Italy this is definitely the norm, but this kind of screwed up economy that only functions for the oligarchy has also been the norm in Italy for hundreds of years so there would seem to be a correlation between not having families and people being stuck under systems of oligarchy.
Your argument is just people making excuses. If our food quality went down or the quality of our air went down due to pollution, would you still be quoting "oh well it used to be so much worse in the 40's so don't complain" ???
This is a BAD sign. It is indicative of an economy that is not working for most Americans. Making excuses and disregarding these proxies for American quality of life does no one favors except for the 1%.
>In other countries it's common to live with your parents until you're married, or even a little bit past that.
You are also not allowed have sex in these countries. Sexual repression sucks ass. I would take poverty over sexual repression. As someone who has experienced this; it has had major psychological impact on my life that I feel the effect to this day. And I am not alone, millions of youth in my country experience this. Imagine what kind of society that breeds, imagine living in a sex segregated society.
Living at home while working at even a decent paying tech job is a great way to save tons of money or pay loans. Definitely something I've considered doing. Also works great with remote jobs.
I thought living with your parents in other countries was more of an aspect of a collectivist culture, versus a hyper-individualistic culture here in the US. I'm not arguing for or against either, my point being that it is simply countercultural and is probably not due to a culture shift but rather other external factors. Any culture experts care to comment?
If everyone is saving money prices will climb up and most of them will end up with nothing.
What should be done is that market should be encouraged to provide enough housing that young people can afford when they need it. Same way Ford did with cars.
You think there isn't, I think there is. And not just the US, western countries.
You will notice the important of the individual in these countries, getting out on your own, supporting yourself. being your own person, not what your parents want to be.
I wonder how the average amount of free space per dwelling has changed over the last 50 or so years...
Perhaps this trend could be explained to some extent by the fact(?) that mommy & daddy have a lot more space at home nowadays than daddy's parents did when he turned 18, making living with the parents more attractive to today's young adults than it was to prior generations.
Not at all suggesting this would be the only likely factor, of course.
Houses today are much bigger. This is one of those things that people often forget when comparing current economic markers or generations to the past. Our standard of living is simply much higher today. The average house had approximately 500 sqft per person in 1973 but had increased by roughly 65% by 2010.
This is an excellent point. Why is "living in mom and dad's basement" wrong and "living in <someone else's> basement" acceptable? Why do we need 2 people (mom and dad) taking up an entire 4k-6k sq ft "single family" dwelling sitting on 1/4-1/2 acre of land?
This country has a housing problem and this is the root of it.
This is the result of our society screwing over the middle class and working people in general for many generations. It used to be the average joe could get a factory job after graduating highschool and be able to afford a modest home and start a family on a single person's income.
But now jobs pay badly and housing is expensive. And in the few places with high paying jobs, housing is so expensive that it makes up for it easily.
No, there's something different happening. Cheap housing is the norm in the Midwest (as has been covered elsewhere in this thread), yet kids there are still choosing to stay at home longer.
We have a dearth of skilled workers. Everyone has known that wages for unskilled labor would go down over time for decades. What people were predicting re: shifts in the labor market hasn't happened, and I do think that a large part of this has to do with culture (blue collar workers are looked down upon) and another part has to do with the U.S. not doing enough to encourage people to go into these fields. For instance, Germany's programs to train their unemployed population in skilled labor is ridiculously effective.
My wife, myself, and my baby are all moving back in with the parents in a few months time. They have a McMansion, so from a cost and space efficiency standpoint it makes great sense. Plus, free baby sitting.
It has always weirded me out how easily people discount the benefits of learning from their elders in the states. We feel lucky to give our daughter a lot of exposure to decades of life experience and wisdom.
I think there is more family dysfunction than other cultures. This is purely speculative, and based on my own experience. I could NOT live with my family. It would be non-stop fighting and absolute dysfunction.
I don't think people easily discount the benefits. I think it is a tough decision between an advantageous financial/child-rearing decision (in most cases) versus independence and decision-making power when you own a house and choose where you live.
I am definitely not discounting the benefits. I'd have a lot more money if I lived with my parents. Still, I plan to avoid it because of the toll on my psychological well-being...
Perhaps the peak romantic-cohabitation in the 1960s is the anomaly, and we're now retreating back towards something more sustainable. Consider that it is normal to live with parents in many other countries.
>>Consider that it is normal to live with parents in many other countries.
The normalness of living with parents correlates with the country's wealth per capita. Since most people in poorer countries cannot afford to own houses, they end up sharing houses their families own. Over time, the commonness of this occurrence becomes accepted as the norm.
It is NOT a good thing that the phenomenon is becoming common in America, because it indicates stagnating or declining wealth levels among the middle class.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- the last sentence brings this up: "What all of these shifting dynamics mean for the future of housing, families, and work has yet to fully emerge."
Just look at other developed countries where living with parents is normal. Could this just be the US lifestyle evolving? It looks like a pretty regular trend over the last ~50 years.
The number one elephant in the room is that the cost of living is increasing while most salaries are not.
It was supposed to be the other way around but urbanization seems to be a major factor for why that doesn't happen mostly because of the increasing value of real-estate that comes with urbanization.
Not the first time this happened. Check out "Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty), the book that kicked off the Progressive Era.
There are interesting possibilities if you can compromise on the city. For example, take Worcester MA (2nd largest city in New England, still close to the high-tech areas). In Worcester you can buy a "triple-decker" (three three-bedroom apartments) for $400K or less. Rent is ~$1100 / unit, so this can easily pay for the mortgage.
It's been a long time since uni and my first company but at that time (90s) it was definitely not normal in my circles to live with your parents. You were considered rather 'sad' if you did. But that's only perception/peer pressure; there are reasons to live with your parents (financial is one). However another thing is that I know almost no one who could live with their parents; that is not about liking or not liking, but more about that you seriously want your own space when you get to a certain age and my parents would be driving me bonkers and vice versa.
The headline is one specific framing of the research. The more obvious takeaway for me is that "married or cohabitating in own household" has dropped significantly while living with parents, living alone/single parents/roommates, living with other relatives/group living situations have all gone up. (The study doesn't seem to break out just living alone.)
So I'm not sure the degree to which I'm inclined to read this study as "young people moving in with parents" so much as "young people not moving in with partners."
I think that in the future we will look back at current US living customs as a fad. The nuclear family will pass away and living in a big household with an extended family will be more common. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
Since the percentage of people living alone hasn't changed for the same period, it seems there is a direct shift from Spouse -> back to Parents, or not making the step from Parents->Spouse. The percentages seem to exactly cancel each other. I 'm not sure if there is an economic argument to make here. It seems like a shift away from long-term commitments and relationships. Or that relationships cost too much.
I think this is due to economics for sure, but also I think this generation, of which I'm barely part of by the age range, has much less balls and guts than the recent previous generations.
Yes the quality of life is better, but now we have generation that just wants to coast along and ride off the successes of parents and forefathers/mothers. "I don't care if I have a shitty job and live in my parents basement, I have a smart phone and a car my parents gave me. I won't fight for better wages a better world, or my country because I'll miss watching survivor tonight. Hopefully someone gets elected to fix everything because I am too busy on facebook to vote and refuse to fight to have a life I want and can respect since it brings up uncomfortable feelings and takes effort."
I know I'm generalizing, but I'm disgusted in general with the lack of effort and spirit people in my generation seem to be putting into doing something about changing this shit. Let's just go back to our comfort cave at mom's and chill instead of giving a fuck.
One thing which jumps out to me is that "other living arrangement" was higher back at the turn of the 20th century. Does anyone have any insight into why it was so high then but has declined since?
The reason this surprises me is that college attendance (and, thus, living in dorms) was much lower then. What were these other living arrangements that so many people were living in?
Create a society that does it's best to drive housing prices up faster than wages and this is the necessary result. This and homelessness and the strangulation of nascent innovative cities like Portland (and Vancouver).
Of course no politician is going to advocate driving down housing prices because, in lieu of an adequate retirement system, vast swathes of the populace are entirely dependent on that housing Ponzi scheme for their old age. Its disruption is unthinkable to them. That and the inordinate influence of the mortgage industry.
So loudly blaming rent control and zoning is the prefect way to do absolutely nothing about the problem as neither of these have any but the most minimal impact on the situation. If you wanted to guarantee the next generation has it even harder, limiting the conversation to these essentially irrelevant points would be the perfect way.
[+] [-] rwhitman|9 years ago|reply
For a young adult in the current economic climate, the only way you're living in one of these cushy homes is if you're living with your parents.
You can't rent one very easily, since they can't be divided up into multiple units or rented at all due to zoning and HOAs. Not to mention it's not typical to be a renter in these neighborhoods to begin with, so even finding a rental is nearly impossible in some areas.
Then of course, after the housing bubble crashed and the subsidies went away, a mortgage for one of these became a big challenge to achieve, and who has the savings sitting around for upkeep and emergency maintenance?
Boomer parents, and a handful of lucky gen-xers are pretty much the only people who could comfortably acquire and hold onto these houses, so it only makes sense that sticking to them like glue is the best strategy if you wanted one.
And there's also the fact that it's just not cool to live in the 'burbs, where you grew up, in the first place. The mental justification has to be "well I'm saving money at least". Saving money, means crashing with the parents. After all, it's "just temporary".
Those are at least my very subjective observations that might be overlooked in that study...
[+] [-] majormajor|9 years ago|reply
This is a very coastal/urban-centric view, IME. The large majority of my social circle growing up in suburban Dallas (a) still lives in suburban Dallas and (b) found a detached home before age 30 (if not 25). I moved away from the suburbs, and to a big coastal city, and so did almost "everyone I know" out here (with a lot of selection bias), but judging from that and housing prices in those crazy markets doesn't work for extrapolating to the country as a whole.
Of the ones still living at home, I don't know anyone thinking "it would be just as cool to have my own place, so might as well save money." The causality is reversed: "I'm broke, so might as well save as much money as possible, and my parents' place is big."
"Not cool" starts being a lot less relevant pretty quickly after getting out of college for most people, IME. Suburban houses are bigger than apartments. They're less noisy. They're more pet friendly. You have a garage for storage/workshopping/whatever. You have more space for starting a family. All those reasons still apply as much as they ever did, the big change from ten years ago to today is economic, not around coolness.
[+] [-] Kluny|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mevile|9 years ago|reply
If you're talking about being able to claim mortgage interest on your taxes then that hasn't gone away yet. I don't know what other kinds of home owner subsidies exist.
[+] [-] prawn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carsongross|9 years ago|reply
The world is certainly richer than it was in the 80s. We are vastly more efficient at producing all sorts of goods. So, then, why is the current generation of Americans unable to afford what was available to the middle class previously?
I believe that the answers to this crucial question are obscure and are unlikely to be found in conventional economic and political analysis.
[+] [-] shams93|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dikdik|9 years ago|reply
This is a BAD sign. It is indicative of an economy that is not working for most Americans. Making excuses and disregarding these proxies for American quality of life does no one favors except for the 1%.
[+] [-] dominotw|9 years ago|reply
You are also not allowed have sex in these countries. Sexual repression sucks ass. I would take poverty over sexual repression. As someone who has experienced this; it has had major psychological impact on my life that I feel the effect to this day. And I am not alone, millions of youth in my country experience this. Imagine what kind of society that breeds, imagine living in a sex segregated society.
[+] [-] sotojuan|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xhrpost|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|9 years ago|reply
What should be done is that market should be encouraged to provide enough housing that young people can afford when they need it. Same way Ford did with cars.
[+] [-] slantyyz|9 years ago|reply
Is there an ethnic variation to this, or does this apply to all groups?
[+] [-] megablast|9 years ago|reply
You will notice the important of the individual in these countries, getting out on your own, supporting yourself. being your own person, not what your parents want to be.
This is a good thing.
[+] [-] dragonwriter|9 years ago|reply
Its quite common in America, too.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] branchless|9 years ago|reply
This is not a good development, even if they used to do it in England in the 18th century.
[+] [-] louisswiss|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps this trend could be explained to some extent by the fact(?) that mommy & daddy have a lot more space at home nowadays than daddy's parents did when he turned 18, making living with the parents more attractive to today's young adults than it was to prior generations.
Not at all suggesting this would be the only likely factor, of course.
[+] [-] slg|9 years ago|reply
Sources:
- https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf
- http://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-ho...
[+] [-] chadgeidel|9 years ago|reply
This country has a housing problem and this is the root of it.
[+] [-] hristov|9 years ago|reply
But now jobs pay badly and housing is expensive. And in the few places with high paying jobs, housing is so expensive that it makes up for it easily.
[+] [-] dionidium|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostrebored|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dforrestwilson|9 years ago|reply
It has always weirded me out how easily people discount the benefits of learning from their elders in the states. We feel lucky to give our daughter a lot of exposure to decades of life experience and wisdom.
[+] [-] kilroy123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shostack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whichfawkes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xirdstl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RamshackleJ|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enraged_camel|9 years ago|reply
The normalness of living with parents correlates with the country's wealth per capita. Since most people in poorer countries cannot afford to own houses, they end up sharing houses their families own. Over time, the commonness of this occurrence becomes accepted as the norm.
It is NOT a good thing that the phenomenon is becoming common in America, because it indicates stagnating or declining wealth levels among the middle class.
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeharding|9 years ago|reply
Just look at other developed countries where living with parents is normal. Could this just be the US lifestyle evolving? It looks like a pretty regular trend over the last ~50 years.
[+] [-] actionwords|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ThomPete|9 years ago|reply
It was supposed to be the other way around but urbanization seems to be a major factor for why that doesn't happen mostly because of the increasing value of real-estate that comes with urbanization.
[+] [-] eru|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhallenworld|9 years ago|reply
http://www.zillow.com/homes/18-Ferdinand-ST-Worcester-MA-016...
Companies no longer offer pensions, so better start your rental empire now.
[+] [-] tluyben2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|9 years ago|reply
So I'm not sure the degree to which I'm inclined to read this study as "young people moving in with parents" so much as "young people not moving in with partners."
[+] [-] shanemhansen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] return0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jupiter90000|9 years ago|reply
Yes the quality of life is better, but now we have generation that just wants to coast along and ride off the successes of parents and forefathers/mothers. "I don't care if I have a shitty job and live in my parents basement, I have a smart phone and a car my parents gave me. I won't fight for better wages a better world, or my country because I'll miss watching survivor tonight. Hopefully someone gets elected to fix everything because I am too busy on facebook to vote and refuse to fight to have a life I want and can respect since it brings up uncomfortable feelings and takes effort."
I know I'm generalizing, but I'm disgusted in general with the lack of effort and spirit people in my generation seem to be putting into doing something about changing this shit. Let's just go back to our comfort cave at mom's and chill instead of giving a fuck.
[+] [-] morgante|9 years ago|reply
The reason this surprises me is that college attendance (and, thus, living in dorms) was much lower then. What were these other living arrangements that so many people were living in?
[+] [-] excalibur|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignu|9 years ago|reply
A new living space to heat, cool, light and manage just to live up to our culture's view of success is incredibly wasteful.
[+] [-] k__|9 years ago|reply
Living alone is expensive, yes, but living with your partner shouldn't be much more expensive than living with your parents.
[+] [-] whybroke|9 years ago|reply
Of course no politician is going to advocate driving down housing prices because, in lieu of an adequate retirement system, vast swathes of the populace are entirely dependent on that housing Ponzi scheme for their old age. Its disruption is unthinkable to them. That and the inordinate influence of the mortgage industry.
So loudly blaming rent control and zoning is the prefect way to do absolutely nothing about the problem as neither of these have any but the most minimal impact on the situation. If you wanted to guarantee the next generation has it even harder, limiting the conversation to these essentially irrelevant points would be the perfect way.
[+] [-] searine|9 years ago|reply
We can only hope that the Great Recession created another generation that will fight for the economic reforms necessary to regain our dignity.