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Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, About half of the journalists who work at MLive are millennials – professionals between the ages of 24 and 39.
If you’re not one, you know one – a child, friend or acquaintance. They make up almost a quarter of the U.S. population.
Here at work, they’re as smart, talented and driven as any group of journalists I’ve worked with in my long career, and I know the future of the news business in our core communities around Michigan is in good hands.
Yet there is a troubling obstacle facing many of these employees, and their families: In the communities where they’d like to put down roots and grow their careers, they are being shut out of the housing market.
Lindsay Moore is a reporter on our statewide news team, and a millennial now renting in Kalamazoo. She wrote an illuminating story in the past week on how a “bonkers” real-estate market is hitting her generation especially hard. She also spoke about reporting the story on MLive’s “Behind the Headlines” podcast (click here to listen).
“I kept hearing friends complain about it enough that it was worth digging into, and it turns out their complaints are completely warranted,” she said.
Demand for housing is white hot; interest rates are extremely low. But inventory is also sparse, and that’s turning homebuying into a bizarre ritual that is part audition, part auction.
This is great for people selling homes. And for older people, like me and many readers of this column, who have had years to build savings and equity in homes. But for our children, and a lot of other people we care about, those circumstances are making it incredibly difficult to become homeowners and to build families in our communities.
In Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, where we have a number of staffers, it's particularly competitive and expensive.
“It’s kind of bonkers for first-time buyers,” Moore said, adding that notions like negotiating on price or demanding contingencies for structural problems have gone by the wayside.
“A lot of them had this idea that it was going be a negotiation … like car buying, and it’s just not,” she said. “There’s that high-pressure emotional process of writing the ‘cutesy letter,’ and ‘What can I afford and how much can I expand the budget,’ and then do it again and again and again for six months.”
Part of the problem, like everything else the last year-plus, is COVID. It has complicated life plans, like job changes and moving, and has led to less inventory for buyers. And cities here in Michigan, like the ones where MLive has news operations, have become attractive to families fleeing big cities now that they can work anywhere.
I didn’t face those circumstance when I bought my first house in my 20s. Unfortunately, our children and children are getting fewer opportunities, and a lot more pressure. More will start deeper in debt – house poor – or have to defer that piece of the American Dream for longer.
“I heard so many comments that, ‘I fell in love with the house on my lunch break, and then when I got out of work, it was gone,’” Moore said. “New homebuyers were like, ‘Can I sleep on this? You know, this is one of the biggest decisions in my life.’
“The answer is, ‘No.’” * Note to readers of our e-editions, which are electronic replicas of the printed newspapers: If you have noticed changes to the reading format or navigation, you’re spot on: We are rolling out a new technological platform. Our papers in Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Flint and Muskegon all are in the new format; Ann Arbor, Jackson and Bay City will be converted in the next week. For an explanation on the changes, and a tutorial on how to navigate your new editions, please watch this video. # # #
🎧 To listen to this week's episode of “Behind the Headlines” , click here. To listen on Spotify, click here.
Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at editor@mlive.com.
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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