For the middle class to be dead, it would have had to be real in the first place, but it has always been an illusion.

There is the owning class and the working class.

If you don't own the means of production (and or a load of property to leech rent off of), you are part of the working class, however uncomfortable that might make someone with the "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" mentality feel. The lie exists in the first place to create and feed that mentality, to ensure at least some working class people consistently vote against their own interests.

One of the richest nations on the Earth has packed all of its citizenry onto the "liveable coasts", into cities.

Packed is a reaaaaal stretch here. Portland's population density is about 1/10th that of notably the lovely and liveable city Paris.

The USA has "cities" that have so much land dedicated to preventing anyone else from owning a home - all that matters is the landowners and their precious fucking "real estate value". And where it's not houses it's car parks.

Everyone in the US who wants to live in a city could live in a city if we just built the requisite housing. We have too many self preserving leeches who refuse to live next to an apartment complex.

I make just north of 50k a year and my wife just over half that and we bought a house. Yes it was built in 1962, it's not large, it's not in the middle of a large city. But 250k a year? I'd be able to clear my mortgage in under 10 years.

So either the housing market in the US is much more messed up than the one in Europe, or we aren't taking into account that buying a house with compromise is better than no house at all.

I think your situation is a bit different. They are choosing not to relocate to a place where they can buy, because they tried that and thought it was boring. I am certainly not saying the housing market is fine, but these folks made a decision between buying a house and living in their preferred locale.

Personally, my family made the opposite choice two years ago, leaving the Best Coast and moving to the Midwest in large part so we could afford a house, which we did on less than $250k/yr gross. This locale is not our first choice, but our priorities were different from the priorities of the couple in the story. Money was not their only issue.

But fuck the housing crisis. We need policy changes that highly favor primary place of residence and disincentivize rental properties.

I'd venture to say a big chunk of those folks inherited wealth. Most millennial homeowners I know inherited money from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and/or parents.

And like many who inherited wealth, these folks often make up their own little rags to riches story about how they got where they're at.

Yeah.... Maybe this is one of the ways I should start associating myself with Gen Z but they also have higher home ownership than boomers did at this age cause apparently the covid fire sale left them still with their parents money and cheap houses.

I dunno I really don't know how anyone does it but I have also been homeless 3 times since I started college so not really a great example.

So it sounds like they had a house in a reasonable area...

Her old boss called her up in 2021 offering double what she got paid last time...

And they never thought to check why she was being offered twice her salary to do the same job?

It's likely because everyone moved away due to housing prices if they weren't insanely wealthy. Shouldn't have sold the home they owned before they even googled the price of homes where they were moving.

Also makes me think it's likely they have exceptionally bad credit like you said. They got two kids, and apparently do zero planning for huge life decisions and complain when shit doesn't work out. Other families raise kids on legit 1/10th of the money this family has...

And she's a financial specialist?

As someone who will have to dedicate 60-70% of their income to own a small, run down home, i really dont have a lot of sympathy for them. 30% of your income to housing is considered affordable, however that metric has likely been impossible for most people to reach over the past decade, most people can't even rent for 30% of their income these days.

Im not supporting high housing and rent costs, i just think compared to average American right now, this couple shouldn't really be considered "struggling" or "poor"

As someone who lives here:

This is real.

Seems cheap for land. You must be in a low cost area. I’m reading your post as $300k for a buildable lot in a major city.

Last time I renewed my homeowners insurance, they put full replacement value of my house under $200k, despite the tiny plot of land and overall purchase price being several times that. I wish my town outside Boston had a buildable lot for only $300k, but the reality is much worse and the house itself is only a fraction of the value

If you own a vehicle maybe venture out of the city a little ways. Bonus points if there is any type of public transportation to take you to the city.

Seriously.

I realize, daily, that I've very much lucked my way into my station in life. Two kids, a 4bed/1.5 bath house in the suburbs. Decent steady job. 200k household gross income.

My house is "worth" a half a million dollars. At least. But so is any other house that is maybe a sidestep. There is no moving to another town...we can't manage to accumulate any significant savings before something happens to take it all away. Even if we could swing the cash necessary to start buying a house, we were able to refi during the pandemic....so moving to a similar-priced house now will mean a significantly higher mortgage due to the higher interest.