Housing, Lifestyle Inflation, and the “Rent vs. Buy vs. Invest”

For many urban and suburban professionals, the classic script—graduate, rent briefly, then buy a starter home—no longer matches reality. Even though mortgage rates have eased off their post‑pandemic peaks, they remain well above the ultralow levels of the 2010s, and housing shortages in many cities continue to push prices and rents higher. The result is that the timing, location, and affordability of homeownership have shifted, especially for Gen Xers in expensive metros and younger Millennials and Gen Z just entering their peak earning years.

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