[wink]

I think you might be missing cultural differences here.

I can't speak for the UK but here in Germany people usually don't just "buy a house" in their 20s, because of the debt involved (guess we are very opposed to debt). In my experience that would happen only at least 10 years later, when you have saved up a sizable down payment. Also selling a house again is a really big deal, kinda rare. There's not a lot of switching, like I hear from some US friends.

So yes, this has nothing to do with support from your parents or general income/wealth bracket. If you are standing on your own feet, you move out to a cheap apartment, often for the first time with your partner. Also please remember that we have a lot less campus universities, people usually live in a small apartment in the city they are studying in (same with vocational training) and not on campus.

(Please correct me if you don't think that a sizable portion of people in the US buy a house before they are 30, no matter if they are "filthy rich" or just working a normal job)

And now for a completely made up theory: If you're going into debt for your degree maybe you don't care as much to get into more debt if you move into a house when starting a job, because you're already in debt. But if you got through uni without getting into debt, either you don't want to do that, or (more likely) you wouldn't even get a loan from the bank here, if you never worked before.

[bradlys]

Housing loans here are low interest relatively. Paying as little as you can to get into a house is generally the go to advice. Multiple reasons: rents here can be quite high and buying a house can be near the same cost (not true in all markets). Appreciation on real estate is constantly happening in the US. (Meaning you will make money if you sell and move to a lower cost region) Investing your overly large down payment into the market is generally preferred instead of putting it into the house. It allows you to have better leverage and get better returns. If I can put my money into a market that returns 6-8% YOY instead of a loan that is 3%, gonna do that… It’s simple maths about which one will likely turn out better.

I’m not sure how much people put down for a payment in Germany but in US, it’s 3.5% to 20% as the norm. 20% being what was traditionally done but more and more people are finding ways to put down less and it is financially more optimal a lot of times as real estate is appreciating quickly and the market is booming too.

There are also some tax incentives for house ownership that aren’t available to renters. The US is setup for homeowners, not renters.

But I don’t think all of this is the main reason why they try to not rely on the bank of mom and dad… the individualism thing is more to do with that.