“Gen Rent” still longing to buy?
So says Trulia in its latest American Dream survey.
More than 65 percent of Millennials consider home ownership as part of their "personal American dream," according to a recent Harris Interactive poll commissioned by the real estate website. R
It's an age group - 18 to 34 - where renting has supposedly become the new ideal amid the never ending downturn in home sales and prices.
In fact, the Millennials are almost as bullish as the somewhat older Gen Xers, 66 percent of whom are still sold on the idea of homeownership.
Yet it's the Baby Boomers who are the most bullish of all. Of those in their pre-retirement years, 74 percent are still high on homeownership, with the number rising to 76 percent for those 55 and older.
Yet maybe the whole idea that Millennials, or "Gen Rent" as they have been dubbed, have adopted apartment living as the new ideal is simply hogwash to begin with.
It's tough getting started on a career these days - in fact it can take years of fumbling to even find a career track, let alone begin climbing the ladder.
Now of course, I chose the highly remunerative field of newspaper reporting, but my main real estate ambition when I was 26 was finding a few extra dollars to move up from a studio apartment to a one bedroom.
And that was back in the mid 1990s - it's even tougher to get a foothold in the world of relatively meaningful work today.
Given those challenges, why would anyone focus on buying a home when they are still in their twenties?
