[Puffer Fish]

A big swath of the younger generation in the U.S. is struggling to be able to afford the cost of housing in the cities. The statistics show that a large number of them are moving to more rural regions where the cost of housing is lower. Unfortunately there may be less good job opportunities in these areas.

The U.S. is becoming overcrowded, and just like in older times, people are venturing out and away to less populated areas with more open land.
Although a lot of the remaining lower population areas have a less pleasant climate.

In 2021, Generation Z made up the biggest percentages of people moving to South Dakota (16 percent), North Dakota (15 percent), Idaho (15 percent), Iowa (14 percent) and Kansas (14 percent).
When looking to settle down and buy a home, the new generation of young adults was most interested in taking out mortgages in Salt Lake City (22.6 percent), followed by Oklahoma City (22.36 percent) and Birmingham, Alabama (20.8 percent), according to data gathered by LendingTree. "Gen Z-ers are increasingly drawn to simpler living in their housing choices," Emilia Mann, a senior analyst at StorageCafe, told Insider. "Unlike millennials, who often gravitate to DC, Washington state and the Chicago area in Illinois , Gen Z-ers tend to favor states with lower population density, from the mountainous terrains of Montana and Idaho to the plains of Kansas and Nebraska."​

Gen Z-ers are moving to mountains seeking 'simpler living' and lower housing costs, Falyn Stempler, Daily Express US, 11-15-2023

[Unthinking Majority]

If migrants go to the cities and rural people don't have enough kids for replacement then somebody has to move there eventually i guess. Either that or cities become even more ludicrously expensive with demand.

[Puffer Fish]

The math all too often just doesn't work: Richmond Fed President on what's wrong with the U.S. housing market

As mortgage rates and home prices stay elevated, the U.S. housing market has become increasingly challenging for aspiring homeowners -- and too many are being shut out, according to one Fed President.

Homeownership is "becoming increasingly unattainable for too many workers," Tom Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said during a speech in Hampton, Virginia.

"Take teachers for example. The math all too often just doesn't work for them," Barkin explained. The median wage for a middle-school teacher in 2022 was just over $60,000, he noted. At that salary today, that teacher could afford a $228,000 home without becoming cost-burdened, he said. But the median price of a new starter home last year was $71,000 more than that. And that’s also "on the off chance you could even find one," he added. The housing market today is reeling from high mortgage rates and a persistent shortage of homes, which is intensifying competition among buyers and pushing up home prices. Both of those forces have resulted in housing affordability dipping to the lowest level since 1984.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage remains far above the pre-pandemic level of 4%, at over 7.5%, and the median national sale price of a home was $412,502 in September, up 2.2% from last year.

"The math for renting also isn't great," Barkin said. Consider the teacher from the previous example who is looking for a place to live. If they were looking to rent last year, they would have had to fork out about $1,643 per month, the median asking rent that year, Barkin explained, versus $2,011 today -- an increase of 22%.​

'The math all too often just doesn't work': Richmond Fed President on what's wrong with the U.S. housing market, Aarthi Swaminathan, MarketWatch, November 16, 2023

[Puffer Fish]

Millennials priced out of homeownership are feeling the pressure

Dylan Rose recently got married and moved to Beacon, New York, outside of New York City, for his wife's job. They make a combined income of $200,000.
But when it came to his dream of buying their first house, the 29-year-old came to a sudden realization: they were priced out.
In fact, mortgage payments on a home would be nearly $4,000 a month, roughly $1,000 more than what Rose and his wife would pay for rent.
"Just that gap between renting and then owning, not even a big house, just kind of a starter house, it's like it's not even possible for us," Rose said. "Not now or probably not any time soon."

The last couple of years have seen a frenzy of competition for similar homes that has led to bidding wars and prices soaring, according to Bridgette Claro, a real estate agent in [the Chicago area] Cook County, Illinois. "I'm seeing sellers get prices that they never imagined," she said.

Around the country, some communities are reporting a crisis of affordability where residents are priced out of renting as well as buying.

On top of this perfect storm is the fact that prospective millennial buyers are competing with older generations, according to experts. This year, the average age of a homebuyer was 49 years old, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Two decades ago, it was 39.​

ABC News, November 24, 2023, "Start Here" podcast series, by Brad Mielke, Jen Newman, and Ivan Pereira

It looks like the problem of housing shortages and unaffordability is spreading outwards from the New York City area.