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There was a time in living memory when a young adult could expect to buy a house straight out of high school and pay it off in 15 years. Edit: note that baby b
by User23 3y ago
There was a time in living memory when a young adult could expect to buy a house straight out of high school and pay it off in 15 years.
Edit: note that baby boomers are not the oldest living generation.
- philipkglass 3y agoAmong my Baby Boomer parents and their siblings (my 9 aunts and uncles), 15 years after high school only one of them lived in a house with the mortgage already paid off. None of those people even grew up in economically disadvantaged households. Did the majority of people in that generation (or an earlier one, if that's what you mean) actually own a house outright 15 years after graduating from high school?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- User23 3y agoMy greatest generation grandfather paid off his mortgage in about five years with a sixth grade education. I grant that was in part due to the postwar boom and his real wages skyrocketing after closing, but it’s worth remembering that the working class stopped sharing in real productivity gains in about 1965. We’ve had similar economic booms but real wages have remained flat, or actually sharply declined in terms of housing.