“Renting for Life”: Young Americans are starting to believe they’ll never be able to afford a home

A growing number of younger Americans are beginning to question whether homeownership will ever be realistic for them, not because they have stopped wanting a house, but because housing costs are consuming so much of their income that saving for a down payment can feel almost impossible.

Housing commentator Michael Bordenaro argued in a recent video that the larger problem is not simply whether people remain renters for life, but how much of their income is increasingly being swallowed by housing in general, whether they rent or own.

“If things keep going in this direction, eventually only the rich will be able to afford a place to live,” Bordenaro said.

He described that possibility as an unsustainable path and pointed to several real-life examples of people who had followed the traditional advice—get educated, work, save and eventually buy—only to discover that rising housing costs had moved the goalposts faster than they could keep up.

A Temporary Rental Turns Into Moving Back Home

Bordenaro began with the story of a woman who graduated from college in 2016 and moved to Sacramento, California, expecting that renting would be a temporary phase before she eventually bought a home.

Instead, roughly a decade passed while she moved between rentals and struggled to save, eventually returning to her parents’ home in her early 30s.

According to Bordenaro, she had been working for a nonprofit and said that even years ago, at least half of each paycheck was going toward rent, leaving only a few hundred dollars after other expenses and sometimes putting her at risk of overdrawing her checking account when an unexpected bill arrived.

Bordenaro said the situation illustrates how basic financial advice has become much harder to follow as the cost of living has risen.

He still encouraged people to avoid debt, live within their means and build an emergency fund, but said households now need a larger safety cushion than they once did because ordinary expenses have become so much more expensive.

The woman, now 32, was trying to use her time living with her parents to catch up financially, but Bordenaro said she had begun reconsidering whether buying a house should even remain her main goal.

Instead, she was shifting more attention toward retirement savings.

A “Wealthy Renter” May Beat A “Broke Homeowner”

Bordenaro said younger people who feel locked out of the housing market may want to consider making that same shift rather than putting every available dollar toward a future down payment.

His argument was that money invested for retirement can compound over time and build wealth even if a person never becomes a homeowner.

That could lead some renters to eventually decide that owning is no longer worth the financial strain.

“Do I want to be a broke homeowner or do I want to be a wealthy renter?” Bordenaro said, describing the choice he believes more people are beginning to face.

He quoted the Sacramento woman as saying that homeownership no longer felt achievable and might never become achievable.

That idea challenges one of the strongest assumptions in American personal finance: that renting is temporary and buying is the natural next step. In a market where ownership can require a much larger monthly payment, major maintenance costs and years of saving for a down payment, renting can sometimes become the more practical choice rather than a sign that someone has fallen behind.

Home Prices Have Pulled Away From Income

Bordenaro said the central affordability problem is the gap between home prices and household earnings.

He stated that the median-priced home now costs roughly five times the median household income, compared with about three times household income during the 1990s.

That difference, he argued, explains why even people with respectable incomes can feel dramatically less able to buy than previous generations did at the same stage of life.

Bordenaro also pointed to a generational chart showing that homeownership by age 30 has declined from one generation to the next, with millennials significantly behind baby boomers at the same age.

He expects Gen Z to face similar difficulties if the current affordability problem continues.

Another woman he discussed was 37 and living in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where Bordenaro said the median home price was about $550,000.

She had a master’s degree and earned roughly $71,000 a year, yet her $1,900 monthly rent consumed about one-third of her gross income before utilities, car expenses and other bills were considered.

She described her finances as a situation where the money simply “comes in and goes out.”

Bordenaro said she might eventually receive a roughly $10,000 raise, but doing so would require taking four additional master’s-level classes despite already holding a graduate degree in special education.

Even that extra income, he argued, might do little more than slightly improve her ability to save because housing prices had become so high.

Buying A Home Can Create Its Own Financial Trap

Bordenaro also pushed back against the idea that purchasing a house automatically fixes the problem.

He described a 34-year-old woman who bought a home in Tacoma, Washington, for $320,000 after previously paying $1,900 a month in rent.

Her mortgage payment rose to about $2,500, and Bordenaro said she quickly became what is commonly described as “house poor,” with so little money left after housing costs that she could barely furnish the property.

Over three years, he said she accumulated about $50,000 in credit card debt.

She eventually sold the house in 2022, paid off the debt and moved into a three-bedroom rental with family, but even there housing remained expensive.

Bordenaro said her current rent consumes roughly 40% of her $83,000 gross income.

His broader point was that buying a house does not eliminate housing pressure; it can simply change the type of pressure involved.

A renter may face rising rent, while a homeowner may suddenly need to pay thousands for a roof, HVAC system or another large repair that cannot be delayed.

That is why, in his view, buyers should not stretch themselves simply because they have been told ownership is always financially superior.

Even Higher-Income Households Are Choosing To Rent

Bordenaro said the rental population is changing as well.

He noted that households earning more than $100,000 have been among the fastest-growing groups of renters over the past decade, and he said even some millionaires are choosing to rent because the math can favor it.

If renting saves someone $600, $1,000 or $1,500 a month compared with owning, Bordenaro argued that putting that difference into investments may be the better financial move.

At the same time, he said rising rents remain a serious problem across income levels because the larger the housing share becomes, the less money households have for retirement, emergencies, debt payments and future home purchases.

He cited figures showing that one in four renters was spending more than half of gross income on housing as of 2024, while lower-income households can face even more extreme burdens.

Bordenaro said that kind of pressure forces people to cut back elsewhere, move farther from work, take on longer commutes or rely more heavily on debt.

Smaller Homes Are Returning, But They Cost More

Bordenaro also discussed one possible response from builders: smaller homes.

He said the average size of a newly built single-family home declined from 2,724 square feet in 2015 to about 2,400 square feet in 2025, a drop of 11.6%.

Roughly one-quarter of new single-family homes sold in 2025 were under 1,800 square feet, he said, while the Midwest had an especially high share of smaller new homes.

That suggests builders are responding to demand for more modest starter houses, but Bordenaro cautioned that buyers are still paying substantially more per square foot than they did a decade ago.

He said the average price per square foot had risen by nearly 72% during that period, driven in part by higher material and labor costs.

Smaller houses may be cheaper to heat, cool, furnish and maintain, but Bordenaro’s point was that shrinking the house alone cannot solve an affordability problem when construction costs and sale prices remain elevated.

Bordenaro Says Buyers Should Not Give In To FOMO

Despite the bleak picture, Bordenaro argued that buyers should not assume waiting will automatically make things worse.

He said home prices had been falling on a year-over-year basis nationally during 2026 and claimed that roughly 80% of markets were now favoring buyers, giving shoppers more choice and putting pressure on sellers.

Bordenaro also said higher mortgage rates can reduce demand enough to force sellers to lower asking prices, even though the monthly financing cost itself becomes more expensive.

His larger message was that people should not buy simply because they are afraid they will miss their chance.

If a buyer can comfortably afford a house and finds a good deal, he said moving ahead may make sense, but someone who has to drain savings or take on large amounts of debt should not force the purchase.

For younger Americans who increasingly feel as though they may be “renting for life,” Bordenaro’s advice was not to treat that outcome as an automatic financial failure.

The more important issue, in his view, is whether housing leaves enough room in the budget to save, invest and build a stable future, because owning a home is not much of an achievement if the cost of keeping it leaves someone financially trapped.