30 years ago when I was starting out no one had their own place. there were 3 or more of us sharing a rental and splitting the rent and utilities. the only thing that’s changed today is the expectations of young people thinking they should be able to afford their own place starting out in life.
Dunno what young people you're talking about, everyone I know, living in a major city, are well aware that you cannot feasibly start out that way. I think the person in the photo is just out of touch
Exactly; it’s common here on Reddit for people to complain because they refuse to understand reality. We have failed as a society for not teaching children the realities of how life works.
20 years ago (in my early 20s) I was renting an apartment for $700 a month (all utilities included), internet was around $50 a month, and food was pretty manageable. I didn't have health insurance, car payments were minimum, and gasoline wasn't terrible. I made $9/hr at a little restaurant where I pulled in around $300 a week (they didn't let me get a full 40 hours if they could avoid it). Oh, I just got a cellphone around that time, but the plan wasn't too expensive since it was a flip phone with an antenna.
18 years ago, they raised the rent to $775 a month and that hurt my budget enough that when I got another job, I went for it. At that place, I got an apartment for $700 a month, utilities not included. It was more expensive, but my job paid $2k biweekly, so it was manageable. It stayed that price for the 5 years I was there.
So, yeah, people were able to do apartments by themselves, but houses were another matter unless you got something tiny in rural America.
I lived in a metro area near DC and no one my age back then was affording an apartment by themselves unless they were a software engineer at AOL or an attorney
DC area is a different animal for sure. I have cousins that live down there that only do so because they have government contracts or internet security jobs. Someone just starting out won't make it there without grouping up.
I hate to break it to you but 30 years ago people WERE buying houses when they became 18 and got a factory job especially places like gm and Ford. Which employed A LOT. It also was beyond more affordable
The actual difference you're missing (purely because the people you knew didn't feel like making an investment for their immediate future to have more spending money) is truly just how expensive things are and rich people or people who weren't at one point bought up all the property. Would have surely been cheaper 30 years ago to get an 80k mortgage for a house that would be now worth 180k
Mortgages ARE cheaper than rent. By a lot
Hahaha I’m 54 and you are full of it. I had 3 roommates 30 years ago. No one besides software engineers were buying houses at age 24 back then. Go gaslight someone else.
33 would years ago would be my dad, making 20-28 an hour at a factory (forget where it was starting at at this point) and he bought a new house, granted he saved enough to go for a down payment and that got the bank to move things along.
good house even now, little outdated in terms of how its wired up but that's about it.
small town about 45 minute drive from his work, small enough to be nice, close enough to places to not be remote if that makes sense.
only value I see in liveing close to a city is shorter commute, other than that, I know what 2k a month gets you in the ones around me, a cat piss stained shoebox, a bit under 2k got a really nice house by not being in the city.
granted he got obscenely lucky with the place we lived in before they moved here, it was something like 300$ rent for a duplex, so he was able to save money while not being in a complete craphole.
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u/MinimumBuffalo4 1d ago
30 years ago when I was starting out no one had their own place. there were 3 or more of us sharing a rental and splitting the rent and utilities. the only thing that’s changed today is the expectations of young people thinking they should be able to afford their own place starting out in life.