My parents bought the old Brooklyn home that I grew up in back in the '90s. It cost them about $150k, plus however much it cost to renovate after its previous owner, an elderly hoarder, had evacuated the premises. When they sold the three-story home to retire to Vermont a few years ago, the value had risen to 1.3 million dollars. That's a staggering 766% increase. And while I'm happy they made bank on their nest egg, the sale was also a sobering reminder that owning a home in this climate - let alone raising a family in one - may be something of a pipe dream.
As a geriatric millennial with a severe lack of savings and ever-increasing rent, it just doesn't feel possible. In his Netflix comedy special Sweet and Juicy, comedian Sheng Wang discusses this bleak lack of hope in a way that resonates with my own mid-thirties feelings of resignation. "There are some things you assume your whole life, that you thought you were gonna do that you won't get to. I'm learning this now. Up until recently, I thought I was gonna own a house. I thought maybe I was gonna own property on both coasts. Now I'm like 'Man, it would be real nice if I had a deeper kitchen sink.'" At 43 years old, Wang is on the Gen Z/millennial cusp. It doesn't make his words any less valid.
In fact, all over the Internet, there are scads of memes describing the same agony of being a struggling millennial in an increasingly financially oppressive world. Here in New York, rents are rising much faster than our salaries. Nearly 50% of millennials have less than $10k in their savings accounts, and 17% have nothing tucked away for a rainy day, let alone a down payment. In fact, in 2020, the only large city where millennials could afford a down payment after two years of savings was Detroit.
As much as our boomer relatives might tell us to pull ourselves up from our bootstraps, the fact is that they don't make bootstraps quite like they used to, and we definitely can't afford the bespoke straps that will last long-term. The future might be uncertain, but thanks to the millennial mastery of Internet humor, we can still enjoy a little self-deprecating solidarity in the form of depressingly relatable memes. See you at the rental office.
