Bloomberg 'Young People' Housing Affordability Index

[Trevor Ewen]

Like everyone who spends time on the internet, I am very much tiring of the completely overused 'Millenial' term. Thus, I have translated it to 'Young People' the title of this post.

Today's great housing affordability index from Bloomberg.

I would direct your attention at the chart. My assumption is that any market with a 'Surplus' will not only have good deals in the present, but will become more desirable in the future. Young adults will need to catapult out of the high-priced cities. If not now, certainly when they have children. 

'Where to next?' Is an almost daily discussion in my New York City home. Interested in your thoughts on the list. Philadelphia,Tampa, Houston, and Salt Lake are good surprises from my perspective.

[Eric Odum]

I guess it depends on their desired lifestyles.  The cities at the top of the list are also the cities that offer the best and highest paying job opportunities.  Young people grew up experiencing their families being displaced from homes, because breadwinners were locked in to high mortgages coinciding with falling home prices, while their incomes were either eliminated or squeezed.   Mostly suburban markets like Tampa, Phoenix, Orlando were the hardest hit.   

Time will tell whether they become interested in marriage (large percent say they will never marry) and having children will influence their decision to move to areas with lower costs of living and lower priced homes.

Personally, I think the statistical fact that young people are interested in staying uncommitted is great for real estate investors.  For the meantime, they mostly seem interested in leaving themselves financially "available" to the best job opportunities....which means not anchoring themselves with a mortgage.