Gen Z can’t afford to buy houses, and millennials are to blame

Americans under 30 are the real victims. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an intergenerational rant of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Gen Z will have the [housing]( blues. - Women have [no right]( to choose. - Japan still has [tools]( to use. Coquettecore Sources: TikTok, Instagram What do home ownership and flirting have to do with one another? Consider this: Gen Z girlies have spent the month of December tying every object they own in [dainty, pale pink bows](. It’s festive for the holidays, sure, but it’s also a coping mechanism for the joyless winter months. Enter: [c]([oquette](, the French word to describe flirtatious individuals, which has evolved into a full-blown aesthetic that would make Marie Antoinette keel over in delight. No item is safe from getting coquetteified: The [ice cubes]( in your drink? They’d be prettier in pink. The box of [SSRIs](in your medicine cabinet? Your seasonal depression deserves to look adorable. A [corn dog]( at the fair? It’d be cuter with coquette! The [pickle](and [chicken nuggets]( on your plate? Add a little whimsy, why don’t you. The [husband]( in your living room? Wrap him up in ribbon, baby. Heck, I bet they’d be wrapping their houses in ribbon if they could. But they can’t, and it’s not because there’s [a ribbon shortage](. Instead, many Gen Zers may never own a home at all. That’s because millennials — the [avocado](-obsessed generation that came before them — locked in ultra-cheap mortgage rates and probably [won’t move out]( of their houses for a very long time. Although millennials certainly mastered the “exceptionally fine art of [intergenerational ranting](” — especially when it came to whining about never, ever being able to [afford a house]( — Allison Schrager [says](it’s actually Gen Z that’s getting a bad deal. For the past decade, millennials have been saying that earlier generations robbed them of [resources](. But that changed during the pandemic, when they [snatched up]( ultra-cheap mortgages. By 2022, 47% of millennials owned a home — a substantial increase from 2016, when only 25% of them did. “As Gen Z looks to buy their starter homes in the next few years, they will face both high rates and high prices. It may be years before the housing market is affordable again,” Allison explains. Although some economic headwinds are improving — Conor Sen [says]( homebuilding stocks are climbing higher and mortgage rates fell [today]( — it’s still early days. And even if those metrics continue to head in the right direction, there’s still going to be a lack of properties for sale, which means that housing prices will stay elevated for many years to come. Already, we’re seeing stories of young people “[house hacking](” — renting out a portion of your home — in order to afford property in such a tough landscape. The housing market is more distorted than a TikTok filter, and no amount of pink ribbon can reduce the ugliness of that reality. I guess we’ll just have to use AI to imagine what Gen Z’s coquette houses would look like: “This is me if you even care.” Source: Canva Bonus Gen Z Reading: Biden forgave billions in student debt, but [a new poll]( shows it’s not enough for Gen Z. Winding Back the Clock on Abortion Women might experience full-body chills reading this Nia-Malika Henderson [column](, but not the giddy, serendipitous, the-universe-has-aligned sort of chills. Instead, they’ll be the fearful, disgusted, I-feel-like–throwing-up chills. “When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving the issue for states to decide, abortion-rights activists predicted scenarios of women pleading for medical care in front of panels of judges. Skeptics said it would never happen, not in America,” she writes. But the recent spate of abortion news — a Texas [ban]( on abortions that doctors deem medically necessary, and the US Supreme Court’s [upcoming case]( that could restrict the use of mifepristone – is exactly that. The horror stories of lawmakers denying women autonomy over their bodies are aplenty. Imagine being 22 weeks pregnant. You’re not feeling great, so you go to sit down on the toilet. Low and behold, you end up having a miscarriage right then and there. That alone would be a traumatizing experience. But picture the local police showing up at your house, demanding to see receipts. Imagine them charging you with [an “abuse of corpse” felony]( for simply flushing the toilet. It sounds absurd, and yet that’s [what happened]( to 33-year-old [Brittany Watts]( in Ohio after she experienced pregnancy loss in September. Similar nightmares are playing out in red states all across the country. In Texas, where doctors face up to 99 years in prison for performing abortions, the procedure has all but vanished. In 2020, there were 58,000 abortions in the state. Now, only 10 or fewer have been performed per month. Republicans cite the provisions in these laws that “protect” mothers when their lives are endangered, but what are the odds that only 10 women per month are exceptions? “The real goal of these lawmakers and anti-abortion activists is a federal ban on all abortions,” Nia-Malika argues. “Conservatives imagine a world where pregnant women are forced to carry their babies to term and either keep them or place them up for adoption.” And the abortion pill case that’s headed to the US Supreme Court next year could make the situation even worse. If the court sides with the Fifth Circuit, Lisa Jarvis [says](, the justices would effectively be winding back the regulatory clock on mifepristone to the year 2000, when the drug was approved. “Decreeing that the last 23 years of medical knowledge on mifepristone are simply irrelevant would not only undermine abortion access, but also undermine the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority,” she writes. If that happens, telehealth operators couldn’t provide mifepristone. Nurse practitioners wouldn’t be able to prescribe the drug. Even the label of the drug could revert back to its 2000 form, which means women would have less information on dosage levels. If that harrowing scenario doesn’t give you chills, it should. Read [the whole thing](, free above the paywall. Telltale Chart What if someone took this yen chart and made a viral TikTok dance out of it? There’s so much movement! I’m dancing in my seat just looking at it. “Last week’s extraordinary [yen advance]( — from around 147 to 141 versus the dollar in less than a day — is the kind of action you’d expect to see during a natural disaster, not a change from effectively zero to absolutely zero,” Gearoid Reidy and Daniel Moss [write](. Further Reading Democrats should reconsider [the GOP's proposal]( for tougher immigration in exchange for Ukraine aid. – Bloomberg’s editorial board How did a Russian man with no passport [fly 12 hours]( from Copenhagen to Los Angeles with no ticket? — Howard Chua-Eoan Volodymyr Zelenskiy begged Congress to defend his beleaguered nation. He [got stiffed](. — James Stavridis Whether or not Israel's [bombing in Gaza]( can be rated as “indiscriminate,” it is counterproductive. — Marc Champion Industrial companies had [a crazy year](. Here’s who won, who lost and who improved. — Brooke Sutherland The Senate’s [Basel III endgame]( is bad news for the West, and worse news for the rest. — Mihir Sharma [Loyalty programs]( can help restaurants struggling with food inflation and labor shortages. — Bobby Ghosh ICYMI Grindr is adding [an AI wingman]( to its dating app. The economics of [small US colleges]( are faltering. Elon Musk [must testify]( in the SEC Twitter stock probe. Kickers “Come [kick the Cybertruck](,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said. The “Annihilator” won the [Excel world championship](. (h/t Paul J. Davies) This man’s [Rubik’s Cube dance]( went viral on TikTok. (h/t Mike Nizza) This [loose steer]( went running on the New Jersey train tracks. (h/t Christine Vanden Byllaardt) This man [blew up]( his apartment trying to kill a cockroach. Blackstone’s 2023 [holiday video]( has us wondering whether we’ve reached peak Taylor Swift. Notes: Please send pink ribbon and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](