It's not about drive, it's about what can be afforded. In 1972, at the age of 27, my dad bought a house for around ~$20,000 in a nice neighborhood outside of Bo

It's not about drive, it's about what can be afforded. In 1972, at the age of 27, my dad bought a house for around ~$20,000 in a nice neighborhood outside of Boston - $115,097.32 today. Try finding a house for less than 120k anywhere that isn't in the middle of the country, miles from anything or in a run-down neighborhood (not that those are necessarily bad things, just inconvenient). I know a fair amount of people whose student loans are more than that. The people I know in my generation who buy houses now (as in, just getting a mortgage) are, in my anecdotal experience, - Several are just plain rich, one of them was the son of a very wealthy man and then worked for a startup that actually took off - One went into the armed forces for six years and saved up enough money to buy a house in our hometown (because where he wanted to live was too expensive) - Couples who have high earning jobs but are drowning in student loan debt (a dentist and a doctor, in my case) The rest of my friends are renting. I know maybe...seven people under the age of 35 who are paying mortgages. I'm sure most millennials would buy a house or own a car if they could. But the reality is that straight up many cannot. It's not necessarily a matter of "drive".