4 ms·

Personally, what depresses me is that at 28 and in an excellent job making a little more than my train engineer (designing & fabricating train engines) father w

Personally, what depresses me is that at 28 and in an excellent job making a little more than my train engineer (designing & fabricating train engines) father was in the late 90's and he had 3 kids, a house, two cars, and had no other sources of income or money. I can't ever see myself owning a home except somewhere extremely rural and requires a lot of costly basic remodeling, we've had changes & commodification of dating, loneliness, a planet becoming inhabitable with nobody really doing anything to address it. I did what I was told would lead to success, I've worked in multiple places with 5-7 years of experience in my IT field now, and I'm in the same spot I grew up with my grandparents in, barely making it with like an extra $40/mo for ramen & beer with a friend or two one night for entertainment. No debt. It's such a common story among my similarly aged friends too. What do we really have to look forward to?

iamnotacrook 7y ago
"What do we really have to look forward to? " More extreme weather, less water, more migration from countries where people have it worse than you, rise in political parties suggesting protectionism and anti-immigrant policies to combat the above, lower quality goods that don't last as long as people chase that margin down, less interesting and interest in art as people lack the spare time to come up with anything remotely non-mainstream, increasingly censored internet, rise in "tropical" diseases such as dengue fever & ebola in non-tropical countries due to climate change, more religion, more random civilian deaths at the hands of marginalised people and the police, people being prevented from travel/shop/work due to unchallengeable blacklisting by corporate CCTV networks with face/gait recognition resulting in homelessness. Yep, there's a storm comin' alright. The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  As an 18 year old I'm very aware of the fact that I may have to try very hard to ensure my survival these coming decades.
- mcguire 7y ago
  "The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution." Except for the whole "economic collapse" thing. See Japan.
sysbin 7y ago
That's the story of the millennials right now. Too many people then before and nobody building houses for them. I think most non-millenials know of it and there won't be any changes until there is an offset of the generation controlling policy around home building.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  It never occurred to me that people expect new houses to be built for young people trying to get their first home. When I think of a young person buying their first home, I think of buying a 20+ year old home. New homes are for relatively wealthy people, usually people upgrading for the second or third time.
  - entropea 7y ago
    Race to the bottom. This is what millennial are always told. "Well you just need a BEGINNER job, it'll get better". But, there are enough homes for everyone in the country and 20-30 year old homes are fine.
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    Many of the 20+ year old homes in the metro Toronto area have been demolished to make way for either condos or mansions. But even if they weren't, the property values are so high that these homes would still be unaffordable. So, yes, new starter homes have to be built for there to be any on the market at a "starter home" price.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      I feel like there's a cycle starting here that looks something like this: "I can't afford to do the thing I want to do most." "Then do something else." If jobs in Toronto aren't paying enough to live there, move. Find a job making less money in a place where you can actually afford to live. I understand you may want the lifestyle afforded by being in a big city, but you're not owed that experience.
  - 7y ago
rustybelt 7y ago
Do you live in a high COL area? There are plenty of places that are not "extremely rural" that you should have no problem owning a home. I'm an hour outside of Chicago living your Dad's 90's lifestyle on a solid but not spectacular IT salary that was a lot smaller when I bought my house eight years ago.
- lostapathy 7y ago
  Very much this. There's an awful lot of the country that is extremely affordable without being extremely rural. Perhaps we should be thankful so many people are unaware of the cities between the coasts, more people might come here and wreck it!
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Everyone knows, they just don’t like the weather/geographic features/politics/laws/economic opportunities, and are willing to pay the higher prices.
    - rustybelt 7y ago
      That's all well and good. I don't begrudge anyone for spending their money how they wish. Just don't choose to spend your money on those amenities and then complain and act like it's some sort of generational injustice that you can't afford a home or family in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
- entropea 7y ago
  I'm 20 miles outside of Seattle renting from a private owner, so comparable rent for the same 1br to where I grew up in suburb upstate NY. Shop at walmart, dollar general. Went back to smaller town NY last year to visit family, absolutely no difference in costs except electricity costs are higher there. Rents aren't cheaper than what I'm paying even in the 'flyover state' cities.
  - deadmetheny 7y ago
nradov 7y ago
Have you tried living in places like Cleveland? It's far from rural and there are many livable single family houses available for <$150K.
- entropea 7y ago
  Moving elsewhere would be entirely dependent on if I could secure full remote as there's just no way I can leave my current salary or I'd be making minimum wage in another city.
  - rustybelt 7y ago
    Why would you be making minimum wage in another city with 5-7 years IT experience? People in this thread are trying to tell you that someone with your experience can find a job and own a house in many other parts of the country.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Even within the Rust Belt, Cleveland is an outlier in that it’s decline was more recent and steep than the rest of the region. Cities like Pittsburgh and Buffalo started to decline in the 70s and bottomed out in the mid-2000s, but Cleveland sort of double-dipped in that the decline actually accelerated through the financial crisis and is only now starting to bottom out. A lot of what I’ll call “third tier” cities (Cleveland, Boise, Reno, etc.) are facing housing shortages precisely because a lot of people were priced out of larger cities. So housing shortages are popping up in those places as well, driving up home prices dramatically. I know at least one of those cities where the average price of a 2br house jumped from $300k to $600k in 5 years. As usual, the problems are NIMBYs and restrictive zoning with a heavy preference for single-family homes. But moving to smaller, cheaper cities is only a short-term solution. The long-term solution is to build more, denser housing.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    The median listing price in Boise is $349,900 (https://www.zillow.com/boise-id/home-values/); https://www.zillow.com/boise-id/home-values/); Reno, $438,250 (https://www.zillow.com/reno-nv/home-values/; https://www.zillow.com/reno-nv/home-values/; median selling price, $356,700). Cleveland's median listing price is $82,500. Reno's listing price $231/ft^2 up from $151/ft^2 five years ago, but keep in mind that Reno was rather badly hit by 2008: median sales prices for 2br homes peaked at about $284,000 in 2006, bottomed at about $75,000 in 2011, and are currently back up to $271,000 (https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/market-trends/ https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/market-trends...).
mcguire 7y ago
Hmm. "Reported Average Starting Salary" for a mechanical engineer in 1995 was $35,744, or $55,189 adjusted to 2015 (https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trends-through-salary-survey-a-historical-perspective-on-starting-salaries-for-new-college-graduates/#appendix https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trend...). Federal taxes on that are about $8,078 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); let's double that to account for state and local taxes; $39,033 net after taxes, or $3,253/month. Average rent in Seattle is $1,965 (https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/seattle/ https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/se...), but many neighborhoods are lower and more in tune with upstate New York (and "20 miles outside" is anywhere between Everett, Snoqualmie, or nearly to Tacoma); let's split the difference at $1,600. That leaves $1,653/month. Call it $53 for ramen and beer one night a month (that's a lot of ramen and beer) and there's $1,600 for everything else.
- dgabriel 7y ago
  Add a car and student loans, a reasonable food and fitness budget, and that's all of it gone.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    Good point. I never touch any of those so I keep forgetting. :-) (Well, I did have a car loan for a while...) A $35,000 car loan, 60 mos, 5%, is about $660/mo (https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-interest-rates/); https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-... average student loan debt is $38,390 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt), 120 mos (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-take-to-pay-off-a-student-loan-en-621/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-ta...), 8% (https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-interest-rates https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-inte...) is about $466/mo. That totals to $1,126, leaving only $474 for vegetables and stuff.
    - dgabriel 7y ago
shados 7y ago
> and had no other sources of income or money That is part of the issue though. It wasn't that long ago that that was true of most people (90s is pushing it a bit, but before?). These days a lot of people are DINK, and you're competing with those. So not only you have to index the salary for inflation, you have to consider that you're competing with people who don't have a bunch of kids, and whom's spouse also brings in a salary. So (not a real calculation, but just to make a point) assume the spouse would make the same amount of money and the kids are taking half of it, the DINK equivalent of income available for housing is now inflation + 4x that. If the norm back then was: 1 income, multiple kids. Now you have - 1 income, 1 or more kids (essentially screwed) - 1 income, no kids - 2 incomes, 1 or more kids - 2 income, no kids (so far beyond the first case that the former can't come close to competing). Its also why if you are in the later camp and something happens (you lose your job or get sick and get a divorce), you're completely fucked.
cc81 7y ago
The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some. You can probably own a home if you want. You can travel the world if you want. You can meet a nice girl and cook food together in a cozy apartment. You can start brewing beer as a hobby with your friends. You can hike the Appalachian trail. You can do a lot of things if you want.
- vkou 7y ago
  > The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some. The problem isn't that Chicago is going to become uninhabitable. The problem is that food supply for billions of people are going to be threatened, that will make the flood of refugees from Syria seem like a trickle.
  - cc81 7y ago
    The population growth of mainly Africa and parts of Asia is a problem but just like now it would be a problem of distribution. We can grow enough food even with the changing temperatures. It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions.
    - vkou 7y ago
      > It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions. Serious question: Have you ever lived in a country that was in the middle of a famine? People 'find solutions' to that problem. They aren't pretty. Those solutions consist of 'rob', 'starve, or 'leave'. If you live in the first world, your problem is going to be dealing with people who are taking option #3. We're barely capable of dealing with a flow of refugees from one or two countries.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    Why do we need billions of people on this planet? Wouldn't it be better to cut down our population a bit? Earth cannot sustain infinite people..

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"What do we really have to look forward to? " More extreme weather, less water, more migration from countries where people have it worse than you, rise in political parties suggesting protectionism and anti-immigrant policies to combat the above, lower quality goods that don't last as long as people chase that margin down, less interesting and interest in art as people lack the spare time to come up with anything remotely non-mainstream, increasingly censored internet, rise in "tropical" diseases such as dengue fever & ebola in non-tropical countries due to climate change, more religion, more random civilian deaths at the hands of marginalised people and the police, people being prevented from travel/shop/work due to unchallengeable blacklisting by corporate CCTV networks with face/gait recognition resulting in homelessness. Yep, there's a storm comin' alright. The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution.

faissaloo 7y ago
As an 18 year old I'm very aware of the fact that I may have to try very hard to ensure my survival these coming decades.
mcguire 7y ago
"The only solution I see to this is the richest 1% or so paying everyone else to have no children. It would sort out just about every problem in about 50 years. I don't see another solution." Except for the whole "economic collapse" thing. See Japan.

sysbin 7y ago

That's the story of the millennials right now. Too many people then before and nobody building houses for them. I think most non-millenials know of it and there won't be any changes until there is an offset of the generation controlling policy around home building.

Consultant32452 7y ago
It never occurred to me that people expect new houses to be built for young people trying to get their first home. When I think of a young person buying their first home, I think of buying a 20+ year old home. New homes are for relatively wealthy people, usually people upgrading for the second or third time.
- entropea 7y ago
  Race to the bottom. This is what millennial are always told. "Well you just need a BEGINNER job, it'll get better". But, there are enough homes for everyone in the country and 20-30 year old homes are fine.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  Many of the 20+ year old homes in the metro Toronto area have been demolished to make way for either condos or mansions. But even if they weren't, the property values are so high that these homes would still be unaffordable. So, yes, new starter homes have to be built for there to be any on the market at a "starter home" price.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    I feel like there's a cycle starting here that looks something like this: "I can't afford to do the thing I want to do most." "Then do something else." If jobs in Toronto aren't paying enough to live there, move. Find a job making less money in a place where you can actually afford to live. I understand you may want the lifestyle afforded by being in a big city, but you're not owed that experience.
- 7y ago

rustybelt 7y ago

Do you live in a high COL area? There are plenty of places that are not "extremely rural" that you should have no problem owning a home. I'm an hour outside of Chicago living your Dad's 90's lifestyle on a solid but not spectacular IT salary that was a lot smaller when I bought my house eight years ago.

lostapathy 7y ago
Very much this. There's an awful lot of the country that is extremely affordable without being extremely rural. Perhaps we should be thankful so many people are unaware of the cities between the coasts, more people might come here and wreck it!
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Everyone knows, they just don’t like the weather/geographic features/politics/laws/economic opportunities, and are willing to pay the higher prices.
  - rustybelt 7y ago
    That's all well and good. I don't begrudge anyone for spending their money how they wish. Just don't choose to spend your money on those amenities and then complain and act like it's some sort of generational injustice that you can't afford a home or family in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
entropea 7y ago
I'm 20 miles outside of Seattle renting from a private owner, so comparable rent for the same 1br to where I grew up in suburb upstate NY. Shop at walmart, dollar general. Went back to smaller town NY last year to visit family, absolutely no difference in costs except electricity costs are higher there. Rents aren't cheaper than what I'm paying even in the 'flyover state' cities.
- deadmetheny 7y ago

nradov 7y ago

Have you tried living in places like Cleveland? It's far from rural and there are many livable single family houses available for <$150K.

entropea 7y ago
Moving elsewhere would be entirely dependent on if I could secure full remote as there's just no way I can leave my current salary or I'd be making minimum wage in another city.
- rustybelt 7y ago
  Why would you be making minimum wage in another city with 5-7 years IT experience? People in this thread are trying to tell you that someone with your experience can find a job and own a house in many other parts of the country.
wayoutthere 7y ago
Even within the Rust Belt, Cleveland is an outlier in that it’s decline was more recent and steep than the rest of the region. Cities like Pittsburgh and Buffalo started to decline in the 70s and bottomed out in the mid-2000s, but Cleveland sort of double-dipped in that the decline actually accelerated through the financial crisis and is only now starting to bottom out. A lot of what I’ll call “third tier” cities (Cleveland, Boise, Reno, etc.) are facing housing shortages precisely because a lot of people were priced out of larger cities. So housing shortages are popping up in those places as well, driving up home prices dramatically. I know at least one of those cities where the average price of a 2br house jumped from $300k to $600k in 5 years. As usual, the problems are NIMBYs and restrictive zoning with a heavy preference for single-family homes. But moving to smaller, cheaper cities is only a short-term solution. The long-term solution is to build more, denser housing.
- mcguire 7y ago
  The median listing price in Boise is $349,900 (https://www.zillow.com/boise-id/home-values/); https://www.zillow.com/boise-id/home-values/); Reno, $438,250 (https://www.zillow.com/reno-nv/home-values/; https://www.zillow.com/reno-nv/home-values/; median selling price, $356,700). Cleveland's median listing price is $82,500. Reno's listing price $231/ft^2 up from $151/ft^2 five years ago, but keep in mind that Reno was rather badly hit by 2008: median sales prices for 2br homes peaked at about $284,000 in 2006, bottomed at about $75,000 in 2011, and are currently back up to $271,000 (https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/market-trends/ https://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Reno-Nevada/market-trends...).

mcguire 7y ago

Hmm. "Reported Average Starting Salary" for a mechanical engineer in 1995 was $35,744, or $55,189 adjusted to 2015 (https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trends-through-salary-survey-a-historical-perspective-on-starting-salaries-for-new-college-graduates/#appendix https://www.naceweb.org/job-market/compensation/salary-trend...). Federal taxes on that are about $8,078 (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040tt.pdf); let's double that to account for state and local taxes; $39,033 net after taxes, or $3,253/month. Average rent in Seattle is $1,965 (https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/seattle/ https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/wa/se...), but many neighborhoods are lower and more in tune with upstate New York (and "20 miles outside" is anywhere between Everett, Snoqualmie, or nearly to Tacoma); let's split the difference at $1,600. That leaves $1,653/month. Call it $53 for ramen and beer one night a month (that's a lot of ramen and beer) and there's $1,600 for everything else.

dgabriel 7y ago
Add a car and student loans, a reasonable food and fitness budget, and that's all of it gone.
- mcguire 7y ago
  Good point. I never touch any of those so I keep forgetting. :-) (Well, I did have a car loan for a while...) A $35,000 car loan, 60 mos, 5%, is about $660/mo (https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-interest-rates/); https://www.bankrate.com/loans/auto-loans/current-auto-loan-... average student loan debt is $38,390 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_debt), 120 mos (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-take-to-pay-off-a-student-loan-en-621/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-long-does-it-ta...), 8% (https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-interest-rates https://www.valuepenguin.com/student-loans/student-loan-inte...) is about $466/mo. That totals to $1,126, leaving only $474 for vegetables and stuff.
  - dgabriel 7y ago

shados 7y ago

> and had no other sources of income or money That is part of the issue though. It wasn't that long ago that that was true of most people (90s is pushing it a bit, but before?). These days a lot of people are DINK, and you're competing with those. So not only you have to index the salary for inflation, you have to consider that you're competing with people who don't have a bunch of kids, and whom's spouse also brings in a salary. So (not a real calculation, but just to make a point) assume the spouse would make the same amount of money and the kids are taking half of it, the DINK equivalent of income available for housing is now inflation + 4x that. If the norm back then was: 1 income, multiple kids. Now you have - 1 income, 1 or more kids (essentially screwed) - 1 income, no kids - 2 incomes, 1 or more kids - 2 income, no kids (so far beyond the first case that the former can't come close to competing). Its also why if you are in the later camp and something happens (you lose your job or get sick and get a divorce), you're completely fucked.

cc81 7y ago

The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some. You can probably own a home if you want. You can travel the world if you want. You can meet a nice girl and cook food together in a cozy apartment. You can start brewing beer as a hobby with your friends. You can hike the Appalachian trail. You can do a lot of things if you want.

vkou 7y ago
> The planet is not becoming inhabitable. We will do fine even if the planet warms up some. The problem isn't that Chicago is going to become uninhabitable. The problem is that food supply for billions of people are going to be threatened, that will make the flood of refugees from Syria seem like a trickle.
- cc81 7y ago
  The population growth of mainly Africa and parts of Asia is a problem but just like now it would be a problem of distribution. We can grow enough food even with the changing temperatures. It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions.
  - vkou 7y ago
    > It will also be a very gradual increase in temperature and we humans are very good at adapting and finding solutions. Serious question: Have you ever lived in a country that was in the middle of a famine? People 'find solutions' to that problem. They aren't pretty. Those solutions consist of 'rob', 'starve, or 'leave'. If you live in the first world, your problem is going to be dealing with people who are taking option #3. We're barely capable of dealing with a flow of refugees from one or two countries.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Why do we need billions of people on this planet? Wouldn't it be better to cut down our population a bit? Earth cannot sustain infinite people..