Rent or Buy?

It's the question that plagues every young adult as they begin to shed the blanket of carelessness and naivety that felt so warm and comfortable during youth yet equally smothering and disatrous heading into their late-to-mid 20's: continue to rent, or dare to buy? While it may seem like homeownership rates are down overall, it's difficult to view the data without obtaining a sense of inevitablility to your own eventual home purchase; there is clear, unmistakeable trend towards homeownership as age increases, topping off at ~80% at it's peak for 65-74 yr olds.

While much of the media may have absent-mindedly scapegoated Millenials in an attempt to lay the disruption of numerous economic markets at their feet (network cable and classic chain resturants, such as Applebee's, to name a couple), there's no doubt that millenials' crusade to dare to question most forms convential wisdom seems to have indeed had a noticeable marginal affect on homeownership rates in their own ranks, either by design or as collateral damage. And can you blame them? One need not be a conneissueur of history to realize their timidity towards buying: this is a generation who came into adulthood—and thus into the workforce—not to the thundering, optimistic drumbeat of prosperity, but to the panicked lament of the subprime mortgage crisis and it's subsequent housing market crash and long economic recession. And while median home values seem to have rebounded to their average growth rate, average hourly wages have not enjoyed the same effect.