> If you're anywhere near the suburbs of a city, you can add another $500 to $1500/month in property taxes, $1500/month property taxes would be $18,000 per yea

> If you're anywhere near the suburbs of a city, you can add another $500 to $1500/month in property taxes, $1500/month property taxes would be $18,000 per year. On a $400K home that would be 4.5%, which is significantly more than you'd find anywhere in the United States. The average property tax rate in the US is around 1.1%. Moreover, most locations have an exclusion for the first $XXX,000 of home value. For example, a city might tax the first $100,000 of home value at 0% and then only apply the 1.1% rate (using the average here) to the remaining $300K. Assuming a $100K home value exclusion and a 1.1% rate (average national rate), that comes to $275/month, which is about half of the lower end of the range you quoted and nowhere near the $1500/month upper end of your range. Also, $400/month HOA fees would be several times higher than the average. HOAs aren't actually as common as the internet suggests, but when you get into an HOA in a neighborhood with $400K houses, you're probably going to be paying more like $100-150/month, not $400/month. > $400k on a house is simply impossible for many millennials Sure, but so is $2K/month rent. I never suggested that every millennial can afford a $400K house, but rather that it's not an impossible reach for many millennials. This is especially true for married millennials who haven't had children yet. I think too many people focus on the idea of the single millennial purchasing a home on a single income and living there alone, but in practice it's usually people getting married and settling down somewhere together on two incomes.