Genz and millennials don't want your small starter homes want forever homes now
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Anonymous
You and I both know that people had much smaller wardrobes and fewer toys back then. - person who has a 5 person family in a 1600 sf home |
Anonymous
starter homes dont have four bedrooms and three baths. My house I grew up a family of six was a starter home had three bedrooms and one bath. 1,200 sf on a 40x100 plot. Your house in that neighborhood would be called an Executive home My neighbors next block who were rich lawyers and doctors had the 1,600 sf models. It goes to show how much home sizes have increased over last 50-80 years |
Anonymous
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Gen x here: we waited unit we could buy a forever home too. It's modest. We saved up and bought in our mid 30s, had our kids there, became empty nesters, and still live there. Moving once was enough.
Some younger people doing the same the we did doesn't seem like anything new. |
Anonymous
Except a 5 person family would be someone with Fertility problems back then. Barely a family. My block my Mom had four kids and we had one of the smallest families. I dont care if less clothes or toys try fitting in 5 sons and two daughters into a 1,300 sf house. My neighbors the Mullens had that it was crazy. They had big families back then |
Anonymous
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We are the millennials you speak of, and have rented our entire lives with two kids, early 40s. The main reason for this are parents who did the who starter house, upgrade, upgrade thing who have completely warned us off of it. My parents say that by the time they bought and sold the house, made the required upgrades, maintained it, etc, they always came out break-even.
We plan to buy in the next few years and stay in one, non-starter house until retirement. But for now, a low-cost SFH in a great elementary school district with zero maintenance or property tax will do. |
Anonymous
| I did not read the article but in the current prices/interest rate environment this makes a lot of sense. You can’t really expect the kind of appreciation that was typical in the past which helped people build up the equity for a larger home and move up. Right now the mortgage for a crappy little house is more expensive than renting a better place. So of course it makes sense to just keep doing that, save up, and then buy a place with the idea of staying there. There is nothing entitled about this behavior. It is just the rational thing to do in current economic conditions. |
Anonymous
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^^PP is right that most people won't see a lot of appreciation over the next decade so stretching now and enjoying the mortgage interest deduction is a consolation.
The other reality of starter homes, at least in the DC area, is that they are clustered in neighborhoods that people don't seem willing to buy into because the schools have high ESOL populations. That becomes a self-reinforcing pattern as the only people moving into those areas are more immigrants. |
Anonymous
| Stop saying "forever home." It is dumb and inaccurate. |
Anonymous
Agreed. Also from a family of 6. Our house was technically a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1200 square foot house, but it had a walk out basement my parents finished over the course of about 10 years and got two multi-use rooms (that got used as bedrooms even though they were odd for bedrooms -- one was the only way to access the backyard from that floor and the other had the laundry in it) and a half bath out of. I now live in a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 sq foot condo with one kid (so family half the size of the one I grew up in and one-quarter the number of kids) and people will often ask us if we are anxious to move to something bigger. It's baffling. I do wish we had a yard, but my kid has her own bedroom AND bathroom. I only got my own bedroom when I got to high school and my older sister left for college. I experienced my first "en suite" bathroom at the age of 31. It's just funny that what I consider a luxury home that is WAY nicer than the middle class house I grew up in with way more room per person and much nicer features, is considered some kind of compromise by most people I encounter. So weird. |
Anonymous
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Xennial here. Bought our first and only home at 35. We bought a home big enough that we would never “outgrow.” (i too hate the term forever home but yes it does apply to my thinking).
Why? Because we are tired. We moved every year in college. We moved for grad schools. We moved in together! We moved across the country - twice - for job opportunities. All of this always as renters, which was fine. Divorced parents - no family home where all of my childhood stuff remains. No financial help or gifted downpayment from family. We were encouraged to move for opportunity as young people, and we did, again and again. And at 35, we bought, and we bought with the goal/intention/hope of never moving again. It’s been a decade, zero regrets and still zero desire to move. I have no HGTV fantasies. Buying a “starter” home with the intention to sell and buy again in 5 yrs. would have been exhausting. I love this house and I love not moving and will never leave. |
Anonymous
| PP here. Anyway, while a lot of people in my age bracket may be waiting to buy a bigger home out of entitlement/being accustomed to Boomer financial support, but some of us - me! - are just burned out. We waiting to buy the long-term, big family house because knowing there would be more moves on the horizon was just that unattractive. Remodeling is also unattractive. |
Anonymous
Oh, so only women are selfish? GMAFB. 
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Anonymous
And with tariffs we may go back to that. 2 dolls instead of 30. |
Anonymous
That’s just silly. Did you live in a Catholic neighborhood or something? There were tons of 2 child families. No fertility problems. It was planned that way. |
Anonymous
But were there even “starter homes” available to buy? I think the point is that home prices and mortgage rates are so high now that “starter homes” do not exist so there’s no choice but to save up longer. Throw in having a big student loan payment at the same time you are trying to start saving for your own kid’s college, people just do not have a “starter home” option. |