[PebblesHD]

To be fair though, in places like Sydney, the 1% are buying most of the houses, having most of the good experiences, and living a very much better quality of life. You could be in the 90th percentile and still not afford any better than ‘house 90 minutes commute away’ thanks to $1.6m median prices.

I am very much an upper income earner and yet I could not afford any ‘average’ house in any suburb I’d actually want to live in.

[dh2022]

Or maybe chalk it to youthful exuberance and optimism :). A lot of my kid’s elementary school friends thought they would become the President of America :)

[deprecative]

Gen X isn't that young for the most part. My take would be more: they've grown up with capital interests consolidating and commodifying every aspect of life and thus they're realistically looking at the costs and knowing they need more than what feels intuitively reasonable.

The delusion, or naivety, is that they'll find success. Then again what's the alternative? Death.