America has become accustomed to bad housing news. Every few weeks there seems to be another headline about soaring house prices, rising mortgage costs or the shrinking dream of homeownership.
For millions of young Americans, buying a first home no longer feels like the natural next step into adulthood but an increasingly distant ambition. Owning a home, getting married and starting a family are becoming milestones that many assume must wait until some undefined point in the future – if they happen at all.
Research from the JPMorganChase Institute demonstrates just how dramatically housing affordability has deteriorated in recent years. They found that first-time homebuyers aged 25-44 are now spending an average of 58 percent of their income on mortgage payments – that’s doubled in five years.
The income now needed to purchase a typical home has soared, putting a formidable obstacle in front of millions of young people seeking the American dream.
In a rational world concerned about our national health, this should mean that it’s time to “build baby build.”
America needs more homes – particularly starter, single-family homes. If we care about our future, we must make housing that young families desire much more affordable. Young families are competing in a market that seems increasingly stacked against them often by regulators, lawmakers, and a diverse bench of entrenched interests.
But if we conclude that America simply has a housing affordability crisis, we have only diagnosed part of the problem.
Economists use the phrase "household formation" to describe the moment when someone leaves home and establishes an independent household. It’s a useful economic measure, but it hardly captures the fundamental crisis.
Household formation is about far more than a mortgage or a ZIP code. It’s about growing up, getting married, going on life’s great adventure, making lifelong commitments, building a home and, for many couples, welcoming children. It’s the life path Brad Wilcox’s research shows is the one most likely to lead to the greatest personal happiness and life fulfillment.
The reality is our housing crisis is contributing to America’s family formation crisis. It’s also contributing to America’s happiness crash.
The Institute for Family Studies recently published creative and welcome policy proposals that may well decrease our housing crisis, improve family formation, and boost fertility.
But good policy is just one part of this solution. Parents are another.
Pew Research found that nine out of 10 parents list financial independence and job satisfaction among the top priorities for their children, but just one in five say the same about them getting married and having kids of their own. A quick look at falling marriage and fertility rates makes it clear that kids are following their parents’ priorities.
Here’s some irony: young marriage tends to boost incomes and makes securing financial security easier.
Somewhere along the way, America quietly rewrote the purpose of marriage. For generations, marriage was understood as one of the principal ways two people built economic security together. Young couples didn’t wait until every financial goal had been achieved before making a lifelong commitment. They combined incomes. They shared expenses. They encouraged one another through setbacks and built savings while raising children along the way. Marriage was not the reward for financial security; it was often the means of achieving it.
Today, we increasingly tell young adults a different story.
Finish your education. Establish your career. Pay off your debts. Get the down payment. Buy the house. And THEN after that is done – think about marriage.
This message is not the one previous generations followed. And, it is one that is also leading to less happiness, shorter life spans, and less flourishing.
No one would suggest young Americans should ignore economic reality. Policymakers must address the extraordinary housing challenges amongst young people, who should be the group leading the way as first-time buyers. Too often, first-time buyers are not actually young people.
That is why this housing conversation must be about much more than real estate. America, do we still believe that marriage is one of the institutions through which ordinary people can build flourishing lives together?
The latest housing figures must be a wake-up call. Young Americans should not be squeezed out of the housing market and this challenge deserves serious political attention.
But good policy should also coincide with new action in our culture.
We must help our young people understand that life-long commitment has always preceded the type of security we have only recently begun telling our children to expect first. The life goal has never simply been to help more Americans buy houses but to help more Americans build a home... a place where marriages flourish, children are raised, faith is passed on, love is replicated, and communities grow stronger.
Without question, America needs to “build baby build” and produce new starter homes. It also needs the confidence to say something that earlier generations instinctively understood: marriage has never been reserved for people who already have everything together. At its best, it is how two imperfect people begin building a future together.
It’s time to shout from the rooftops that marriage is the way for society to help young people not just buy houses but fill homes with love and happiness and deep meaning. Both culture and policy should be moving society in this direction.
J.P. De Gance is the founder and president of Communio, a national ministry that equips churches to strengthen families. See communio.org for more.
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