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I agree and I'm in this group. I blame the duration of modern education. It has made newer generations less flexible. Institutionalization. It's a paradox beca

I agree and I'm in this group. I blame the duration of modern education. It has made newer generations less flexible. Institutionalization. It's a paradox because the Internet has made the pollination of ideas more likely - but we are less likely to do new things, we stay in our boxes. This shows up in the productivity and entrepreneurship statistics. It may be true that wages are poor and rents are high - but also we're really not helping ourselves. Rates of self built homes should be increasing among young people but I don't see that. Usually over the years a generation gets richer but I suspect many young people with 'careers' are waiting for a golden goose. If you are aged > 30 and rent in a major city and earn less than 40k-60k per year - you need to wake up and get out before you become a poor middle aged person. Most people my age from university are living like students a decade after leaving the university. Having to live with your parents or live in a house share cannot be half your adult life if you have a successful career, nor can forking most of your income over to a landlord. HN's residents are an anomaly in the broader economy and their experience is alien to most of their generation.

mikebelanger 8y ago
Part of the reason for the decline in self-built in homes is advancements in modular home building. They're much better, and more economical than ever before. Even my Dad, who self-built two large homes himself, admitted it doesn't make sense to self-build. One is better off just working more in whatever specialty they do, and getting a modular home.
- bachbach 8y ago
  We're not buying those either. I've seen only one prefab in my area. We're not even building Tiny Houses. That movement has faded away as the land permission issue dominated over their advantages. Meanwhile: https://youtu.be/M73r32vK7C4 https://youtu.be/M73r32vK7C4 That's not a joke - there is a steep decline in being 'handy' - I'm doing everything I can to learn how to be but it still feels a bit unnatural. That lack of adaptability is like an extra tax. I don't think my parents are more handy either, but that's a generation that bought their houses at 5x-15x lower prices so millennials like me could really do with being more hands on. To put this in perspective, my father bought his house for 40k 20 years ago and now it is valued at least 250k. I earn about the same as he did 20 years ago and I suspect I earn more per hour than my university peers. Bluntly - they're poor - the most sensitive subject you could talk about is how much you earn. That's private. It's not the cost of equipment that's the problem. The cost of good power tools is lower than before and they're more effective. Materials prices are higher but not that much. The big constraint is psychological, possibly followed up by permissions for building. There's a weird psychology with this subject - weird to hear it described but it's there. Somehow not having a house is believed to be less impoverished than going and building one. Count me out! I don't think forking over half your earnings to a landlord is sophisticated. I remember talking to people about the Tiny House concept and I got the strong impression that living in a modest self built dwelling was an admission of poverty.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    I feel the biggest issue with owning a house is the amount of debt recent college graduates are already in. If I didn't have my student loans hanging over me, I would've totally gone and bought a house, or built my own (everyone in my family has built their own, pretty much, so I have a wealth of knowledge to draw on thankfully). But, I can't afford it. I feel that's part of the issue with many people choosing to pay rent over building. Not to mention trying to save so you have a decent down payment size.
  - rdiddly 8y ago
    I'm old and I just learned the "case length" trick!
    - bertjk 8y ago
      Haha and I just learned the "draw a perfect circle around a nail" trick! No idea where that might be useful in my own life though.
  - mikebelanger 8y ago
    Yeah to me the Tiny Home concept missed the point, on multiple fronts. Like you said, what's preventing younger cohorts from buying isn't the actual scale of existing/conventional homes, its the ability purchase of the land to begin with. Especially in America/Canada, where's there's still plenty of space for a regular-sized home. Whatever rises in material costs there may be, it can't be enough to overwhelm the loss of economics of scale that a Tiny Home construction would suffer from. After all, every facet of a regular is also going to happen in a Tiny Home - meaning much of the same initial overhead in installing, getting specialists, etc. > Somehow not having a house is believed to be less impoverished than going and building one. Count me out! I don't think forking over half your earnings to a landlord is sophisticated. I've never heard that belief - unless in the form of "land rich money poor" self-descriptions. I happen to think forking over money to a landlord is about as unsophisticated as its gets - despite it sometimes being the only tenable option. For many indebted that's certainly true.
  - yourapostasy 8y ago

mikebelanger 8y ago

Part of the reason for the decline in self-built in homes is advancements in modular home building. They're much better, and more economical than ever before. Even my Dad, who self-built two large homes himself, admitted it doesn't make sense to self-build. One is better off just working more in whatever specialty they do, and getting a modular home.

bachbach 8y ago
We're not buying those either. I've seen only one prefab in my area. We're not even building Tiny Houses. That movement has faded away as the land permission issue dominated over their advantages. Meanwhile: https://youtu.be/M73r32vK7C4 https://youtu.be/M73r32vK7C4 That's not a joke - there is a steep decline in being 'handy' - I'm doing everything I can to learn how to be but it still feels a bit unnatural. That lack of adaptability is like an extra tax. I don't think my parents are more handy either, but that's a generation that bought their houses at 5x-15x lower prices so millennials like me could really do with being more hands on. To put this in perspective, my father bought his house for 40k 20 years ago and now it is valued at least 250k. I earn about the same as he did 20 years ago and I suspect I earn more per hour than my university peers. Bluntly - they're poor - the most sensitive subject you could talk about is how much you earn. That's private. It's not the cost of equipment that's the problem. The cost of good power tools is lower than before and they're more effective. Materials prices are higher but not that much. The big constraint is psychological, possibly followed up by permissions for building. There's a weird psychology with this subject - weird to hear it described but it's there. Somehow not having a house is believed to be less impoverished than going and building one. Count me out! I don't think forking over half your earnings to a landlord is sophisticated. I remember talking to people about the Tiny House concept and I got the strong impression that living in a modest self built dwelling was an admission of poverty.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  I feel the biggest issue with owning a house is the amount of debt recent college graduates are already in. If I didn't have my student loans hanging over me, I would've totally gone and bought a house, or built my own (everyone in my family has built their own, pretty much, so I have a wealth of knowledge to draw on thankfully). But, I can't afford it. I feel that's part of the issue with many people choosing to pay rent over building. Not to mention trying to save so you have a decent down payment size.
- rdiddly 8y ago
  I'm old and I just learned the "case length" trick!
  - bertjk 8y ago
    Haha and I just learned the "draw a perfect circle around a nail" trick! No idea where that might be useful in my own life though.
- mikebelanger 8y ago
  Yeah to me the Tiny Home concept missed the point, on multiple fronts. Like you said, what's preventing younger cohorts from buying isn't the actual scale of existing/conventional homes, its the ability purchase of the land to begin with. Especially in America/Canada, where's there's still plenty of space for a regular-sized home. Whatever rises in material costs there may be, it can't be enough to overwhelm the loss of economics of scale that a Tiny Home construction would suffer from. After all, every facet of a regular is also going to happen in a Tiny Home - meaning much of the same initial overhead in installing, getting specialists, etc. > Somehow not having a house is believed to be less impoverished than going and building one. Count me out! I don't think forking over half your earnings to a landlord is sophisticated. I've never heard that belief - unless in the form of "land rich money poor" self-descriptions. I happen to think forking over money to a landlord is about as unsophisticated as its gets - despite it sometimes being the only tenable option. For many indebted that's certainly true.
- yourapostasy 8y ago