I'm a little upset. I just found out that my generation is responsible for more than the gratuitous wearing of flannel, the death of Kurt Cobain, the rise of Courtney Love, Winona Ryder in general, and the tech boom and subsequent crash. According to Generation X Finance, Gen X'ers may also have caused the current mortgage & housing crisis. How, you ask?
If we look at the position of Generation X in the economy, a noticeable trendemerges. The majority of those in this generation that attended collegegraduated in the mid- to late-90s. What was the economy doing then? We wereinthe midst rapid technology growth, and the sky was the limit. The economy wason fire, high-paying jobs were almost being handed out upon graduation, and lifecouldn’t have been better for this generation....
..But without being able to experience or understand the effect of inflation rates in the double-digits and what a bear market feels like, this generation had unbridledoptimism as they set out on their own.
Unbridled optimism? Really? Didn't this guy see Reality Bites?
2. We were childless, overeducated, and rolling in the dough.
Without a family or children to support, the booming economy presented opportunities that most young adults could only dream of. Unlike their boomer parents who typically worked blue-collar jobs and didn’t venture far from their roots, many Gen Xers saw an opportunity to take dream jobs almost anywhere in the country.
3. We were overly mobile and buying more house than we could afford.
Gen X Finance:
Since people were not often bound to their hometown by a spouse or young child, this allowednew graduates to pick up and move to the hottest areas in the country. Of course, with the salaries being offered and few financial obligations, this meant many could buy the house of their dreams at a very young age.
The people I knew who stayed in Knoxville and bought homes, bought small homes that actually had lower mortgage payments than they were paying in rent.
4. We lost our shirts in the tech crash because we didn't see it coming.
Gen X Finance:
Suddenly, those living the high-life are faced with increased expenses and potential income loss. This is a bad situation to be in if you were dedicating 30-50% of your income to housing. Now, the generation that has experienced nothing but good times is completely lost.
In summary, the Gen X Finance article states:
When you combine a generation of people who were possibly biting off more than they could chew and leaving themselves unable to cope with economic changes, you find the effect on housing, real estate, and credit to be very significant across the board.
But you can still totally blame Winona Ryder if you want to.
3 comments:
Was that a Baby Boomer that wrote that? 'Cause they are the selfish generation if you ask me. Nothing is ever their fault
You know, the scary thing is the article came from a blog called "Generation X Finance," so I'm assuming the author was a Gen X'er - isn't that weird?
Well, I commented in my reply to your comment over at my place. But I thought I'd come over and leave it here too. Your rebuttal is spot-on, if you ask me. We did not choose to do all the mistakes the writer pointed out. However, I will add this. When we first attempted to buy a home in FL in 2000, with $100K in income, a very much Babyboomer Mortgage agent tried to suck us into a $300K plus home, saying that we would easily qualify and that we should be buying that much house. If we had done that stupid move we would be a statistic right now. A foreclosure statistic that is. So, who was the problem? Us or them?
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