I don't get how you don't get it. I mean that with no animosity of any kind. I'm genuinely curious when people talk about buying a house like it's a common sense option.

As a millennial in my early 30's, the only people I know my age that own a house are people with parents that essentially handed them a fully built life when they came of age. As in, paid for college, bought their first (or first few) cars, floated them after college, paid for their weddings, then paid half or the full deposit on their "starter" home. And that's not a specific person I have in mind. That's every friend I have who owns a house. Their parents had that kind of money. Every other person I know that doesn't have rich parents (I'm in this camp) is working themselves to the bone just to scrape by. After 16 years in the workforce, 14 of those years being in a highly niche (but terribly paid) tech role, I can barely afford to keep a car running doing all of the work myself, let alone scrape together an extra $200 to get a secured card so I can finally start building credit. My pay checks are already consumed by the time they hit my account, and there's a seemingly endless backlog of debt from decades of poverty. My parents are finally at a point were they can help their kids at times, but it's in small amounts and they can only help one or two of us at a time. But, they're boomers who might never retire, so even taking small loans from them feels bad. It's an incredibly disparaging state of existence. I'm leaving out a lot of details for the sake of not writing a novel, but, I'm not financially illiterate, and I'm not giving up. I've just accepted the bleakness of my reality while I slowly grind myself (hopefully) out of it over the next 2 to 3 decades.

I'm not trying to whine, or point out your privilege. What I'm saying is; this is my reality. One in which the concept of "extra money" you can put aside for smart investments is a nice delusion to entertain. The fact that people like you are out there wondering why someone our age wouldn't buy a house boggles my mind, but also shows a very stark contrast in the lives of working/povery-class people and middle class and up. That is a huge problem.

But that's just my perspective. As I said, I'm genuinely curious to hear yours. How are you in a position where buying a house is the obvious option when statistics show that is very much not the case for most people under 40?

Edit: spelling.