Beforehand, it was just kind of, we thought that's what everybody's
supposed to do. You're supposed to buy a house.
But for us, buying an RV, this is our house.
And so we love it. This just
all felt really surreal that, you know, I was standing in something
that was mine and that I had worked hard to get, and now it was kind
of like my baby to help raise and groom.
I never thought I would own a home, you know, especially the home that
I have now.
Yeah. The belief that owning a slice of earth in the United States is
part of the American dream, and it is embedded in how we think about
real estate. What is the American dream today?
Is housing and owning a home still part of that dream?
Should it be part of that dream?
You buy your home. That's the American dream. Well that was defined
as the American dream. Exactly.
It's been part of the American dream since the 1950s.
A whopping 89% of millennials say they'd like to eventually own a
home. It can help build generational wealth, provide stability
and give a sense of accomplishment and pride.
But it can also be stressful, expensive or even inaccessible.
I think millennials ultimately aspire to have homes, but I think, it's
still the American dream, but I call it the dream deferred, and it's
deferred because of student loans, the lack of having a large amount
of equity. So do you still need to own a home to be happy?
Human beings need things like shelter, food and security to realize
our ultimate potential.
Without these basics, life can be a huge challenge.
What we have is an evolutionary need for stability and
community and neighborhood.
We can find that shelter, security and stability from renting or
owning a home. While millennials are the largest generation in the
U.S., we only account for 11% of all homeowners.
Millennials have been hit by a variety of challenges across their
young lives, if you want to put it that way.
They were hit at first by the Great Recession.
Now we're in the Covid recession.
The ability to save across that time has been diminished a little bit
by guaranteed student loans, among other things.
Despite a double recession, some millennials still managed to
purchase homes. My name is Krystal Anyang-Kusi.
I am 30 years old.
I just bought my first home in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Growing up. I know I was personally told, hey, live at home with your
parents, especially as a female, until you get married
and then you move out with your husband and get your home.
So for me, I wanted to do things a little bit differently.
Krystal recently bought a townhome in Georgia.
Up until then, she had been living with her parents.
So it has been different living in a home all by myself without
any of my sisters or family or even any noise.
I did make a sacrifice moving down here by myself and also moving in a
home by myself as well without any roommates.
So it has been an adjustment, just learning to make new friends,
meet new people and get out and about to learn the area.
It's made me feel like I have something that's truly mine and
something that I can fix up in the way that I would like and not have
to get anyone else's opinion on it.
And if I come in and I don't like something, it's my responsibility to
change it up. There's so many days I walk down the
stairs and I'm like, I can't believe this is my house, you know?
So it gave me a huge sense of accomplishment because that was a box
to check, a goal that I had to own a home.
It is an act of independence, really, to be able to
provide your own housing and to feel comfortable in doing that, for
that to be a reasonable goal that's not going to create undue
stress, right?
It reflects a more equal society, if more people can do
that.
After reaching this milestone, Krystal is now locked into a
30-year mortgage. The only thing is I wish I could have gotten a
better interest rate. So it's definitely giving me more of a sense of
being more of an adult and it's changed my mindset on a lot of things
and just made me a little bit more responsible, especially when it
comes to finances.
Both renting and buying can make you happy.
It simply depends on your circumstances.
Let's look at a 2011 study from Ohio.
After you control for income and quality of housing and other things,
they find that owning a home is no better than renting an apartment
as far as happiness is concerned.
Because they had less time to spend on leisure activities,
the study reports the homeowners "derive significantly more pain from
their house and home." Yikes.
Another study out of Germany notes that new homeowners felt a boost
in housing satisfaction over the first five years, but felt no boost
in life satisfaction.
Meet Matthew Fry.
His family used to rent a home in Florida.
We spent almost $50,000 in renting this house and we had
nothing to show for it.
We had paid this other person's mortgage, the landlord's mortgage,
and given him $50,000.
And so for us, that was kind of a hard pill to swallow.
After renting, Matthew and his wife bought a home in Nashville.
They lived there for two and a half years before hitting a roadblock.
Oh, yes, I prefer buying.
It's definitely a great investment and — most of the time it's a great
investment. And so for us, buying was just by far a better option.
So we had made this decision that we were just working a crazy amount
of hours and our lives were crazy stressful to pay for this house and
that we enjoyed the freedom.
We enjoyed the security and the investment we were getting from it.
But ultimately, we were looking for something more.
Homeownership can mean a lot of financial stress, and it can mean
giving up things like vacations or eating out,
experiences. We tend to feel a lot happier when we spend our
money on experiences rather than material
things. In November 2019, the Fry family sold their home and bought
an RV. Their goal?
To tour the U.S.
and its national parks with their three young kids.
For us, it's been just an amazing transition for us as a family to be
in this RV and to travel and to see the country and to experience all
that we have. It's definitely a great adjustment for us.
It's a good adjustment. And so selling the house was very scary.
But like I said, we got a pretty good return on our investment.
So it was an easy decision for us to sell our house.
The Fry's return on investment was approximately $40,000.
The family has made some sacrifices to help make this lifestyle work.
We took almost 40 to 50 percent decrease in
pay. We adjusted our bills and our financial situation accordingly,
knowing that we were going to take that hit on our income.
We were gaining the freedom to be where we want, when we want.
And we've gotten to see 16 national parks and to experience so much
in this country. There are things that we do miss about being in a
house, being able to just sit on your back porch and not have to
worry about packing up your entire house to move every week or so.
That's something that we do miss.
And not having connections with specific people or a specific
community of people, it's definitely something that I know I'm a
social person, so I miss that aspect of it.
As long as it works for our family, as long as we're happy.
We will continue to do this.
Owning a home is not the be-all end-all, but it can be a huge leg up
in life. The issue is it's out of reach for many.
It really is a challenge for those first-time homebuyers to get into
the marketplace and own and policies need to be forwarded around
some of that — around race and income equity.
Cost alone is a huge challenge.
The average home in the U.S.
costs $331,000.
That would make a 10% down payment $33,100.
The average household has a little more than $10,000 of wealth to
leverage. And with that, it's really hard to buy and get into a
home.
If you're able to save up, purchase a home and keep
that home for five years or more, there can be great
benefits.
As you age, hopefully the value of your house has gone up and
the cost of your — and the value of your mortgage has gone down.
And that creates generational wealth, which is really important.
Building generational wealth subsequently helps close the racial
wealth gap and bolsters economic opportunity.
You're also participating in the American dream.
And an important piece of this is the idea of financial security, of
owning a home. So there's a lot of very positive things about owning
a home that truly make you happier.
Ultimately, owning your home can make you happier.
But that sentiment is not universal.
What we're doing is not for everybody, and I would say the same thing
with buying a house, buying a house is not for everybody.
I feel like if I can do this, I can do so many other things that I
thought I couldn't do and I can do it on my own.
We hope that our kids see that it's our dream and that, even though
it's crazy, we want to make it a reality.
And so whatever their dreams are, we hope that even if it's crazy, we
hope they pursue it.