Okay I don’t have friends to ask…, but I have relatives and a lot of my parents’ friend circle and a lot of them apparantly own their homes… and apparantly there are a few that even own rental properties…
(USA, their social circle varies from Seattle, Boston, NYC, and Philly)
I’m with my parents and they own this house…
USA 31, most of my friends (all close in age) do but some still rent. Most work pretty good jobs. 3 I know own one or more multi family buildings they rent. Those are the ones with particularly good jobs, one is a very well to do real estate guy. I own my home with some property I operate a small farm on as a side gig. I’ve had a good income and been wise with my money since my very early 20s though. Home ownership in the US varies on location but is pretty much exclusively for 100k plus annual individuals or couples it seems like right now.
USA… Most of my friends over 25 have houses and are married.
Under 25, renting townhouses.
Rented until I got married and we decided it was worth shaving our monthly housing costs down by taking a 30 year mortgage. We locked in our lives and weren’t going to be moving away anytime soon.
And then we refinanced when we’d made enough payments and most of all when fed interests rates were insanely brought to 0%.
Now we’re locked in paying a fraction of what the landlords charge my neighbors. And we are constantly barraged with calls and mail to sell to corpo landlords.
People with rich parents own homes, pretty much nobody else does. Because their parents gave them the down payment or purchase it outright for their adult child. Ironically, these folks are the most vocal and whiny about how they don’t have enough money…
I don’t know very many people who own their own places who bought it entirely on their own, and those that did, usually live in a crappy tiny house in a undesirable town outside of the city. And they bought their homes around 40 years old, no in their 20s or 30s like the rich kids did.
This is coastal USA in major city areas. In rural areas or midwest… most people are buying homes around 30. It’s much cheaper.
Pretty common - Romania
Though in big cities… Good luck owning. The strategy seems to be, for developers, to build really expensive apartments that nobody can outright buy, the rent is super high, therefore you can’t save, and you stay a renter your whole life there.
Nobody is building modest apartments I swear… Every new block is for the elites only, even in my shitty little town.
Most of us are lucky enough to own an apartment or house outright but we usually own modest, old, commie or post commie buildings.
Northern Indiana / Chicago, millennial. Basically everyone in my circles own. Have one friend who rents (lives in NYC).
It seems not too crazy to own in IN, but the problem is you have to live in IN.
Chicago, and same, at least among college friends. And neighbors. Many work colleagues are renters, though.
Own as in already paid off mortgage or still in the process?
People almost exclusively consider it “home ownership” even if you still have a mortgage.
I don’t see myself ever owning a home. I’m in Los Angeles making ~$100k per year. I have friends who’ve tried to save and make down payments toward properties for sale but they always fell through.
It hurts to see thousands of dollars every month leave my bank account knowing it could be building equity instead.
You can find a place to buy. You just won’t enjoy living there.
Lots of people won’t make lifestyle or other compromises for home ownership, some will. It’s a choice.
Affordable properties are not going to be desirable.
Los Angeles
I quickly skimmed the map in zillow… holy shit they are like 900k and 1m range…
My parents got this house in around 2014 for 100k ish (plus a bit more for rennovations)
Philly
But the issue is…
I was in like 5th grade at the time…
and the school here were horrible and I got bullied a lot more often… I got called a “Ching Chong” (racial slur against ethnic Chinese) all the time… casual racism became way more common than it used to be when we were in Brooklyn (which is too expensive and we’d never be able to afford buying a house there…)
School ratings were like between 1/10 to 4/10… horrible…
But for childfree people its not too bad really… my mom only got robbed once for the decade we’ve been here…
(I sometimes hear a lot of weird “fireworks” at night… and its kinda concerning… but whatever its 'murica… its just another night of “fireworks”… 👀)
Some are renting, some are under heavy debt for a run-down old house they are stressing out over as they are legally obliged to fix it up to certain standards within a set period of time (usually 5 years).
Most of them own some type of property. The rest rent. I was one of the last to buy right before shit hit the fan with COVID and the market went to hell.
Philly-area millennial.
Among friends and family around my age, I have probably around a dozen or so people or couples who own their homes, one of whom inherited it, and one who bought it from family for cheap
And many more than that who rent, live with their parents (who often but not always own their home) and a couple whose housing situations aren’t quite what you’d call secure but aren’t quite homeless either.
As for myself, I’m kind of caught in paperwork limbo living in a house that’s owned by my mother in law, that she’s agreed to sell to us and we’ve been given carte Blanche to do whatever we want with it, are responsible for repairs and maintenance, but actually getting shit together for a mortgage is being way more of a pain in the ass than it should for reasons I don’t really want to go into.
In my parent’s social circles, the vast majority own homes or have in some way secured some kind of long-term housing for themselves, like one who basically gets their apartment rent free by being some kind of property manager.
Ayyy Philly
repairs and maintenance
Repairs and maintenance is overrated… my parents house… the heater randomly stops working like 5 times per winter and the bathtub leaks water downstairs… and some of the walls have cracks…
Its been like this for years…
Lmao
Most of my friends own a house now, but almost everyone stil had a mortgage to pay. This is the Netherlands. Some of them bought their house during the banking crisis of 2008-2012 when houses were relatively cheap. Others who more recently bought their house have moved to smaller villages with lower prices.
Netherlands, all of us also. Two of them solo, one of which bought it like 3 years ago. Me and my wife bought ours in 23, we’re in the market currently.
All of us have hbo level jobs, one of us used to be entrepreneur. Sold his company. The guys all work in IT.
Canada, and nil. Unless you count my older relatives (boomers), everyone I know that’s my age rents (from boomers).
Canada, Vancouver (HAHA I LOVE THIS CITY HAHA).
USA (NYC) and Canada (Ontario). I don’t know a single person who owns their home.
NYC is unaffordable 😭
Its why my parents decided to leave and brought us to Philly… which is kinda "ghetto"¹ ngl
(¹for lack of a better word)
I’m genX and have owned a home almost continuously since I was 23 or 24. In most cases I don’t know whether friends own or rent their homes but afaik they almost all own. My sister doesn’t, but she is disabled.
My oldest (~30) kids both own homes. One with her husband and she was a restaurant general manager when she bought and switched to bank manager to have a kid for better hours and benefits. My son is just a single guy who has been a nurse for a handful of years, and he just bought about a year or so ago.
This is in Midwest USA. When I lived near D.C. I think renting was more common.






