Renting for life

I was recently lamenting the joys of apartment living to my mother and mother in law to be and neither one of them had any advice about how to deal with noisy neighbors. It occurred to me that they had never lived in apartments. They went from their parents homes, to college dorms, to houses with their husbands. Houses that they were actually able to afford. The money they put down on their houses amounts to what I spend on my annual student loan payments.

And I am sitting here thinking, what in the world do you need these days to get a house in a decent urban area (think Boston, SF, Portland)? The answer is 20% down. And that's what the difference is. The average home value in these urban areas in 1960 was $58k Today the average is $169k Even though the average income has only increased $33k. And this doesn't count for the mounting debt brought on by the cost of college educations...

There is a great article from the Times Online from the UK "Generation Rent: is home ownership falling out of favour?"

Now I know there are a lot of people out there who were living beyond their means who are now losing houses they could never afford in the first place, but for those of us who have yet to get into the market. It's not an easy task...