Anti-work

<p>Buying a house today is much more complicated than 20-30 years ago. Wages have not raised with the prices of a home, interest rates are intense, and unlike your parents, you can&#39;t use a tray of homemade cookies as a down payment on a home.</p><h2>On a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/13qs8iy/a_lot_of_my_older_coworkers_have_huge_houses_that/" target="_blank">popular Reddit thread</a>, one person tells their coworkers how much they pay to rent, and they don&#39;t believe them.</h2><p>They write:</p><blockquote> <p>I was talking to one of my older coworkers, and he asked why I work two jobs; I told him my rent is $1800. He was like well damn, you must live in a mansion. I said, no, just an 800 sq ft apartment.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He didn&#39;t believe me, so I showed him on my phone what all the apartments are going for in our town, and he was like, what the f*ck? My mortgage is half that on a four bedroom house.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He showed me pics of his house, which was huge and pretty decent; I looked it up on Zillow, and it&#39;s worth $400 000. He bought it decades ago when it was around $100k.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>All my coworkers and I talk about the housing crisis a lot, and all the older guys who have been working there for 20-30 years said they bought houses in their early 20s thanks to this job.</p> </blockquote><p>The internet finds this deeply relatable.</p><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/elmuchocapitano/" target="_blank">elmuchocapitano</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>I have the same job they did, the same position, and I will never be able to afford even a starter home. The American dream is dead.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>At least they were willing to listen and be curious. I have mostly older coworkers, and we all work in finance, so it isn&#39;t that they don&#39;t understand. It&#39;s that they don&#39;t want to understand.</p> </blockquote><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Content_Cooker/" target="_blank">Content_Cooker</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>Yep. My husband and I bought our first house when we were in our mid-20s. He made about $18/hour, which was a pretty decent wage in 2001-02, and I stayed home with our toddler and was pregnant with our second child.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>The house was $130,000. We sold it a couple years later for a little over $200,000. It&#39;s worth about $400K now. But my now-adult children have skilled jobs (both in the trades, one is a few years into their apprenticeship and the other is a year in) and neither of them makes $18/hour... in 2023 dollars.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>They&#39;re nowhere near able to purchase a house and they still live at home (with no real prospects for moving out, as rents in our area are around $1,800 for a one-bedroom or $2,400 for a two-bedroom apartment).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It&#39;s troubling and makes me feel bad for them very hard for regular middle-class young people to get ahead. They&#39;re fortunate in that we, their parents, do well and can house them and help them without any problem.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>If we were having trouble paying our bills or didn&#39;t have a large-enough house for four adults, I really don&#39;t know how they could manage to save their money and get ahead at all.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DNBeauty420/" target="_blank">DNBeauty420</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>And people wonder why we are depressed and not having kids. It really is depressing. I highly doubt I&#39;ll ever own a home myself.</p> </blockquote><p>OP, I am literally in your shoes.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Older workers are flabbergasted by co-workers rents because their mortgages are lower.

Shenuque Tissera

Buying a house today is much more complicated than 20-30 years ago. Wages have not raised with the prices of a home, interest rates are intense, and unlike your parents, you can&#39;t use a tray of homemade cookies as a down payment on a home.On a popular Reddit thread, one person tells their coworkers how much they pay to rent, and they don&#39;t believe them.They write: I was talking to one of my older coworkers, and he asked why I work two jobs; I told him my rent is $1800. He was like well damn, you must live in a mansion. I said, no, just an 800 sq ft apartment.  He didn&#39;t believe me, so I showed him on my phone what all the apartments are going for in our town, and he was like, what the f*ck? My mortgage is half that on a four bedroom house.  He showed me pics of his house, which was huge and pretty decent; I looked it up on Zillow, and it&#39;s worth $400 000. He bought it decades ago when it was around $100k.  All my coworkers and I talk about the housing crisis a lot, and all the older guys who have been working there for 20-30 years said they bought houses in their early 20s thanks to this job. The internet finds this deeply relatable.elmuchocapitano says: I have the same job they did, the same position, and I will never be able to afford even a starter home. The American dream is dead.  At least they were willing to listen and be curious. I have mostly older coworkers, and we all work in finance, so it isn&#39;t that they don&#39;t understand. It&#39;s that they don&#39;t want to understand. Content_Cooker says: Yep. My husband and I bought our first house when we were in our mid-20s. He made about $18/hour, which was a pretty decent wage in 2001-02, and I stayed home with our toddler and was pregnant with our second child.  The house was $130,000. We sold it a couple years later for a little over $200,000. It&#39;s worth about $400K now. But my now-adult children have skilled jobs (both in the trades, one is a few years into their apprenticeship and the other is a year in) and neither of them makes $18/hour... in 2023 dollars.  They&#39;re nowhere near able to purchase a house and they still live at home (with no real prospects for moving out, as rents in our area are around $1,800 for a one-bedroom or $2,400 for a two-bedroom apartment).  It&#39;s troubling and makes me feel bad for them very hard for regular middle-class young people to get ahead. They&#39;re fortunate in that we, their parents, do well and can house them and help them without any problem.  If we were having trouble paying our bills or didn&#39;t have a large-enough house for four adults, I really don&#39;t know how they could manage to save their money and get ahead at all. DNBeauty420 says: And people wonder why we are depressed and not having kids. It really is depressing. I highly doubt I&#39;ll ever own a home myself. OP, I am literally in your shoes.

Buying a house today is much more complicated than 20-30 years ago. Wages have not raised with the prices of a home, interest rates are intense, and unlike your parents, you can&#39;t use a tray of homemade cookies as a down payment on a...