Millennials Love Zillow Because They’ll Never Own a Home

“The only thing that makes me feel less mad about all the pretty houses I walk by that I look up to see I can’t afford is how fugly the interiors are via StreetEasy,” says Laura, a digital strategist in New York who requested anonymity. “When I see an interesting-looking building, I always look it up. I want to know how much it’s ‘worth’ and how much it has appreciated over time. But also to see what ugly ass shit the current owners have done with the inside.” I do this as well but on Instagram instead of Zillow or StreetEasy. I’ve followed real estate Instagram accounts for a while now, daydreaming about buying a gorgeous Craftsman in Pasadena or a farmhouse in Tennessee, but it wasn’t until I found @sf_daily_photo that my ogling became a full-blown obsession. I love and hate this account because it portrays one of the things I want most in the world — a house in San Francisco — in its worst possible state: bought, possibly with cash by a wealthy techie who then gut-renovates the soul out of it. Unlike the Zillow home I mentioned above, where many of the apartment’s beautiful original details are modernized to contemporary tastes without sacrificing the home’s original personality, SF Daily Photos shows homes that have been renovated beyond recognizability. What was once a gorgeous home that survived over a century’s worth of earthquakes and likely just needed a little TLC becomes, in the hands of a rich techie, an in-home Apple Store—all for the low, low price of $2 million! SF Daily Photos represents today’s real estate market at its most exaggerated. Across the country, the housing supply isn’t keeping up with rapidly expanding demand. This trend is especially pronounced in places like San Francisco, where the housing shortage has become an all-out crisis. But even in areas where real estate is more reasonable, homeownership is still out of reach for most millennials. Alex Bordelon, an editor based in New Haven, Connecticut, says he browses Zillow for brownstones and other old homes in cities he’d love to live in, like Chicago, London, or Edinburgh, or small houses in the country, which he dreams about remodeling with his partner. “Ultimately [I browse for] just a space where I can have friends over and have a dog but not McMansion Hell large,” he says. “It can be a little stressful and/or depressing because I don’t know how feasible it would be to own a house as a millennial with student debt.” Maybe it isn’t all bad that we’re filling our heads with daydreams about restored Queen Annes in Portland, Oregon, or Victorian-era cottages in Michigan. TaylorRose Walsh, a graduate student in New York, says that she finds looking at real estate listings inspiring. “It helps me stay motivated as a young person who feels very far away from getting on the property ladder,” she says. “I feel like if I have a good grasp of where I’d like to live one day, it helps me set concrete career and financial goals — even if I never reach my desired income level, I think it’s healthy to stay inspired.” She acknowledges that it can be an occasionally masochistic activity, but says “it’s good to dream.”

Jasmine Fardouly, a research fellow at the Center for Emotional Health at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, says that aspiring to things you may not achieve has complex outcomes depending on the person. “Although upward comparisons can be inspiring, they seem to more often lead to deflation and low mood. Judging others to be better off than oneself often leads to negative outcomes, particularly if the level of achievement seems unattainable,” she says. “Although browsing unaffordable homes may be inspiring for some, it is likely to have a negative impact on others who are focused on evaluating their own housing situation against others on Instagram.” Research on other forms of fantasy, such as weight loss fantasies, suggests that the hours many of us spend staring at Zillow listings and dreaming about purchasing one might even be setting us back from achieving it. A 2012 study looked at how women in large bodies anticipated their weight loss, and it found that those who expected to lose weight lost more than control groups while those who fantasized about weight loss lost less. One explanation for this result is that expectations encourage us to pursue goals while fantasies are mentally satiating enough that we don’t follow through. Real estate stalking on Zillow and Instagram may fill the same purpose: It could drive some people toward achieving the goal of homeownership, crappy economy be damned. For others, however, the fantasizing may be just another obstacle among many. Either way, it’s clear that inequality is having negative effects on millennials’ mental health. And homeownership — the marker of financial and personal success in American society — is a big part of that.

Renting does not have to be absolute misery. I love my apartment, and my landlords are decent and fair. But, while I appreciate my landlords’ decency and our low rent compared to market rate, I’m so afraid they’ll jack up the price that I won’t even ask for them to fix the living room heater. The instability and lack of control associated with renting is bad for your health. Meanwhile, homeownership (at least in the housing system we’ve currently devised) seems to have fewer health repercussions. A 2012 study of urban homeowners found that they had better mental health than renters because they feel a greater sense of control in their lives — and that’s because they actually do. Part of the appeal of the homeownership dream is that it’s supposed to be achievable. Work hard, save a little, buy a house. It is increasingly clear that this is not a permanent fixture of American life, but rather a luxury that was specific to the postwar period and the following decades. It all ended with the financial crisis of 2008, which did two things: It ripped the facade off the lie we called the American dream, being as it was in large part a result of people being tricked into buying homes they couldn’t afford, and it paved the way for an acceleration of income inequality that is felt most acutely by people of color and millennials. In the face of economic instability and personal financial insecurity, what are the things that most young people still have control over? What we click on. What we look at. What we daydream about. And so Zillow or Instagram step in, where fantasies about more stable lives are more possible than actually achieving them. Most of us, whether our parents were homeowners or not, were taught that buying a home is the real sign that you’ve made it. In America, once you own a home, you’re a real adult. You’ve reached the pinnacle of moderate, feasible success — not massive wealth, not a yacht, not a chateau in the French Alps. Just a home, of any size, to call your own. But, while homeownership may be the cornerstone of the American dream, for many millennials, it’s nothing more than a Zillow-based fantasy that seems more distant with each passing year.

[quote] They’ll Never Own a Home

I don't see this as true. Delayed, yes, but not never. I'm at the elder end of millennials, and know many people in my age range who either own, are looking, or are seriously thinking about it. These are all couples though, with both partners earning good salaries in careers they've been in for around a decade or more..

Hence, people are moving to the South and West

R5, yes. Friends who've decided getting a home in my city isn't going to happen are looking for other pastures..

I take it you don't live in Vancouver or Toronto R4? Home ownership is an impossibility for most young people. Unless they have parents with $$$$ for the DP.

Try Winston-Salem

R7, LA, and definitely didn't grow up with parents with $ (I wish!). I am partnered though -- I definitely don't know anybody my age buying a home here on a single income..

I'm an old Gen X--couldn't buy til my mid-40s. My starter home is probably my die-in-home and it's no one's dream home. This has been an issue for decades in high-priced areas. I had friends with Silent Gen parents who bought their first condo in their 50s because that's what living in Manhattan is like when you're not in finance.

However, there are always choices and with people to work remotely in a way they weren't before, there's actually more, not less, flexibility. People don't have to live in NYC or SF or LA. They *want* to. That's different.

The article focuses on people who have jobs that require higher education but don't pay very much: a "digital strategist" (euphemism for entry-level job at ad agencies), an editor, a columnist for a small website and a graduate student.

I suspect that Boomers and Gen Xers with these jobs struggled to save up enough to buy houses in the most desirable neighborhoods too (Digital Strategist is coveting a place in Park Slope a few blocks from Prospect Park.) And they were also probably far more aware of the gap because they graduated from the same colleges as the people their age who were actually buying those apartments (because they were working on Wall Street or at BigLaw)

As others have noted, the solution for people in those high education/low salary jobs is to move places with low real estate prices.

Or just be aware that if you're not going to be making a lot of money, that real estate in NYC or SF will remain out of reach.

Then there's the sticker shock when you move from an apt. or condo into a house. First thing goes wrong, there's no landlord or homeowner's association to call for help.

The other thing is that the main way most people in the middle buy is with two incomes. I'd say the two genuine issues millennials face are student debt, which keeps them from saving money and their not understanding how many traditional fields have been impacted by the Internet in a way that hurts wages--publishing/journalism being a big one.

Kids, don't assume $200K in debt if you're planning to be a writer. Seriously.

Leave the big cities!

I bought my first home at age 59 and had to move from San Francisco to Phoenix to do it. I didn't want to leave but was forced out of my SF apartment. here my mortgage is a third of what my SF rent was. That is the good news. the bad news is I am in Phoenix.

Dreams come true in Topeka.

Mid 40’s is not an old Gen Xer. You’re nearly the Average age of a Gen Xer, someone young Gen Xer. Oldest Millennials Are turning 40

Some Gen Xers are in their mid 50s now

Being 20something or 30something seems awfully young to throw in the towel and decide you aren't going to achieve an attainable goal.

I think the myth that everyone should buy a home has been shattered. Buying a home is not in the best interest of all people

We also love Redfin.

R21, I sometimes love using that site just to see what houses/costs are like in random other cities!

Aren't they buying up homes in places like Boise?

Not millennials

According to this, yes, R24.

I'm Gen X and it's property porn for me too.

Here's a nicer Topeka house in a nicer neighborhood, R16.

R17, I am in my 50s. I bought during the aughts, I just live in a place that's been unaffordable for a long time.

R27 Is Topeka a big draw for Millennials?

I doubt it

KS is paying people who telecommute 15K to move there, but I think it is Wichita, not Topeka.

That huge house at R27 is significantly cheaper than my unremarkable one-bed flat in a not very attractive area of London.

Housing costs are ridiculous. I'm young GenX/Xennial and doubt I'll ever own.

The market will crash. It’s a cycle and we are peaking again. Especially LA - it’s in hyperinflation which is always what happens before the crash. Lots of capital speculating kills the market for people who juts want a place to call home.

I suspect you're right, R34.

Best cities for millennial homebuyers. Make of this list what you will.

The list for those who don't want to click:

1. Rochester, NY

2. Des Moines, IA

3. Omaha, NE

4. Dayton, OH

5. Grand Rapids, MI

6. Syracuse, NY

7. Akron, OH

8. Columbus, OH

9.. Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA

10. Cincinnati, OH

Cheap housing is not the same as “best city”. Misleading title. Dayton, Akron, Des Moines? No.

Worst of all, r38 -- Rochester??? Harlem before gentrification.

Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue

It was Topeka, R31, instead of Wichita.

It just comes down to what is more important for people. Do you want to live in a big city where you can barely afford to live in a 400 square foot studio in a middling neighborhood and you don't really get to take that much advantage of the perceived "benefits" of living in that city because you also can't afford to do anything because it all goes towards rent, or do you want to live in a different place where you can get a fantastic house for 1/3 of the price you are wasting on rent for a miserable existence? You can't have both. If being in the city is that important, you can't complain about not being able to afford housing. Apparently there are people who can.

[quote] Oldest Millennials Are turning 40

No we aren’t. The earliest is 81/82. That’s 38/39 years old.

R12, most landlords in my area don't fix anything under $200. Usually, home repairs are in the 200/300 dollar range, unless it's like ac/heating system, roof; you know major. You would put aside money for major stuff and handle the small/medium stuff if you own a home. It's actually good practice.

People who keep saying “move somewhere” cheaper ignore the fact that those places are cheaper generally because there are fewer and lower paying jobs. You might get a job - but if you lose it, finding another one is tougher. Not as simple as just moving somewhere cheaper - unless you are retired.

I'm not loving the color of those walls in OP's photo.

I’m 37 and everytime I think I’m getting closer to buying a home, something sets me back. The latest setback was me losing my job last year. I have been out of work for months and whenever I do eventually land a new job, it’ll be at least another year before I can buy since most places won’t give you a mortgage unless you’ve worked consecutively for at least a year. Oh well.