My California dream is full of monsters. As a millennial, is buying a home still possible?
READ MORE
Millennial Real Estate Market
The millennial generation now makes up the biggest group of California homebuyers. How are they able to afford homes despite a statewide housing shortage and affordability crisis that make buying difficult?
Expand All
.JPG)
For most of the past century, we’ve been conditioned to believe there’s a path to American prosperity. You go to college, get a job, get married, buy a home, have kids and climb the ladder. If you do that, you can retire with dignity.
Millennials are the first generation to discover that our road map to the middle class is different. Without fundamental changes like ending for-profit education and massive expansions of first-time homebuyer programs, that way of life will become a relic.
The reality of this is clearest when it comes to homeownership, the pillar of intergenerational wealth and American equity. At age 30, 42% of millennials own homes, compared to 48% of Gen X and 51% percent of baby boomers, according to U.S. census data.
It’s even worse if you’re Black (the white millennial homeownership rate is 2.5 times higher), and the despair only got worse during the pandemic with 18% of millennials expecting to rent forever, according to a February report by Apartment List. That pessimistic feeling has grown each of the last three years. Watching the median home price in California surpass $800,000 can do that.
The Golden State is an incredible place to spend your 20s — the people you meet, the potential for exploration, the nightlife, the culture, the food and drink scene, the shared outlook. I formed a lot of deep friendships since I moved here over seven years ago. I just didn’t expect all of them to become long distance when they fled seemingly overnight for a more sustainable life.
The consequences of inaction are more dire for future generations. For the children being raised here, for the wide-eyed young people who move west for a more inclusive community, California is more likely to become a chapter of their lives, rather than a place where they can settle down.
There’s an inherent belief for everyone ages 25 to 40 that a viable future is more attainable in another state — it’s just a matter of how long we want to hold off. Young adults in California juggle some of the nation’s highest rents, with massive student debts, on entry- and mid-level salaries that don’t always align with the cost of living. To save a buck, some lower expectations and accept precarious housing environments. One year, I paid $800 for a room in an East Bay communal home that I shared with nearly a dozen others.
My California dream is full of monsters. When will I be able to buy a home? Can I raise a family here — should I raise a family here? Is the inclusive culture worth the financial setbacks? Will I be able to retire earlier if I leave?
I followed the formula I was given, but still feel like I’m years away from getting anywhere. My student loans from the University of Georgia are paid off, I’ve worked up in my career field and I started saving for my first home, as well as my retirement. Yet somehow I remain a winning lottery ticket behind. Backing the right cryptocurrency seems like the only way to catch up.
I don’t have wealthy parents or an inheritance, which scholars say has become a growing norm in middle-class homeownership, particularly after the recession. University of Sydney professors Lisa Adkins and Martijn Konings wrote in The Guardian last fall that western countries now have property-based classes. Renters are at the bottom.
“Fault lines that are now becoming highly visible — between millennials who stand to inherit assets and those who don’t,” Adkins and Konings wrote. “Over time, access to middle-class status will become more and more closely bound up with what you stand to inherit, not what job you do.”
I tend to be an optimist, but a sea change in millennial prosperity is hard to imagine. In late-stage capitalism, in a nation filled with so much economic absurdity, how could it be? Market forces don’t roll back that way in the U.S., and wages aren’t going to mirror the cost of living anytime soon. In a twisted way, my best chance would come during another economic meltdown.
Look, I know what you’re thinking: Just leave. The same response American bigots give to people of color who have the audacity to criticize their government is now being extended to California millennials. Lucky me, I get it on both fronts.
I’m just too stubborn. I want a good home, that I own, in a state where my family will have a sense of belonging. I just don’t know when or how it will happen. But I intend to fight like hell to make sure it does.