The vibe shift, end of "wokeness"?

[brihard]

An illustration - Ted, Fred, and Jed are roughly the same age (30's) and live on the same suburban street, in near identical cookie cutter suburban family homes. Kids the same age, very similar family take home incomes. All are boring, rolling 5yr fixed over 25yr amortizations.

Ted bought his house in Jan of 2017 for $275k, renewed in Jan of 22
Fred bought his house in June of 2019 for $370k, renewed in June of 24
Jed bought his house in Dec of 2021 for $583k, renewal upcoming

Based posted non-high ratio rates available to them, for the last several years, their mortgages were:

Ted is still ~$970/month $11,640 per year
Fred was at $1320 month $15,840 per year until his renewal, then jumped to $1570 month $18,840 per year
Jed is at $2052 month $24,624 per year, staring down the barrel of a ~2300 month renewal at the end of the year


Ted's family can live a very different life than Jed's. Unless Jed is has buddha level self actualization that's going to weigh on him and influence his world view.

Then throw in his coworker Steve who makes the same money but is a few years older and bought in 13. Has Ted's mortgage payments and discretional spending level, but parlayed his equity into a much nicer house in 2018, a house that is now firmly out of reach for all of Ted, Fred, and Jed.

You just described my street.

 

[IKnowNothing]

My knee jerk reaction is burn the system down, its crooked and fkd.

But whats the alternative ?

No alternative- imo just a hope that we can return to a more stable market and that long term wage growth will make things more attainable. Chalk up the 2017-2022 run up as an anomaly that disproportionately impacted people at certain stages (like early 80's interest spike).

Ultimately the constant comparisons might make Jed angry at the world, but he's at least got a house and yard and kids, which 24 yo Chet can barely dream of

Edited addition- further discussion of the millennials. It's not just the Jed's. We/they all grew up in and came of age through the 90's and 00's, with a fundamental perception that lifestyle and socioeconomic station were primarily driven by income- which is primarily driven by work and choices. The run up spikes that relationship and throws everything we understood (both consciously and subconsciously) about how to perceive ourselves in society out the window. Layer on social media and a consumer lifestyle constantly rubbing our brains with the sandpaper of cognitive dissonance, screaming "this isn't how it's supposed to be, you should be doing better than you are relative to XYZ" and you get a super toxic mental health situation

 

[IKnowNothing]

You just described my street.

Brian, Ryan, and pretentious Ian just doesn't work as well as Ted, Fred, and Jed.