It really depends where they live. My 25 year old D lives in Boston and her current very small apartment in a full service, modern building with underground parking is $3400/mo. To buy something equivalent would be at least $800K, but she would never want that (because her place is really too small), so something a little larger would be well over $1M. There is no value there. It’s better for her to wait until she’s ready to move out a bit further where the $1M will buy a house.
While the mortgage portion of the payment is fixed, the property taxes and hazard insurance keep increasing, and may stress buyers with slower income growth or more fixed income. Home buyers also need to be prepared for the cost of maintaining a home and know how to balance the home and other emergency expenses.
Tackle (sp) is a home repair app similar to Uber. I haven’t used it yet but have had great results getting home repair people through Home Advisor. I love home ownership and look forward writing that last check soon. I would advise anyone looking to buy a home to have no debt and a plenty of money saved. Various cities and counties offer first-time homebuyer assistance, including down payment assistance. Well worth looking into.
I’m having this conversation with my D and future SIL. They both graduated with Engineering degrees, no debt and good jobs. They will live in a relatively low cost area. I recommend they rent for at least a year not so much from an economic standpoint but rather newlyweds need time to get to know one another and what they want in a home. They are in a unique situation in that if they wanted to they could probably rent a nice but modest place and bank the money to pay cash and never have a mortgage. Most of the first several years of a mortgage is interest anyway and the cost of a home is so much more than principle and interest. They are both pretty frugal but I don’t think they like the idea.