The luxury apartments are all well out of my price range, anyway … those tend to be $2k.

Housing is way too expensive in my area for it to be a good investment. Another commenter explained below, but housing is so expensive here that it is potentially better to invest money rather than buy a house. To even be able to afford $2500 a month… that’s like $100k salary?? If I did that at my salary, I would stop being able to afford basic necessities … any emergency health/repair funds would be financially catastrophic, and it would not be worth the hit to my quality of life. Not to mention you need like 100k just for a down payment. You see my income… if I took the cheap rental and invested my savings it would still take 10 years to make that, at which point I would be 40 years old and the houses would probably cost even more. I’d have to work until I was 70 with the typical 30 year loan. You must realize that this financial advice is very entitled.

But yes, I agree that investing the money I save through cheaper housing would be a good move.

The millenials I know who own a home all have support from their families, anyone else I know who is even close to being able to afford a house has VA benefits. Although I and my friends are all younger millennials. The cohort encompassing people in their late twenties as well as people in their early forties means it’s kind of useless for a lot of generalizations. Younger millennials/Gen Z are increasingly unlikely to afford a home.