How to Decide Whether to Buy a Home in Your 20s

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There’s a lot of pressure on millennials to start buying homes. The recession is over, the olds of the world like to remind us. It’s time for the whippersnappers to grow up, get married, have babies, and decide which shade of white they want their picket fence to come in. I’m an eggshell guy myself.

According to Marcie Geffner at The Motley Fool, it’s a lot easier than most millennials think to go out and buy a starter home. And even though the common chorus repeats that too many young people still live in mom’s basement, the National Association of Realtors notes that the highest percentage of recent homebuyers are 34-years-old and younger. It appears we’ve reached the point where ’90s kids have taken a break from gloating about the quality of Nicktoons to start acting like adults.

But is that really for the best? Like I said, there’s a ton of pressure on young people to start playing the game, but so much of this pressure is coming from folks who matured in a far different world. Social norms have shifted to such a degree in recent years that it’s inadvisable for many people in their 20s to even think about investing in a home. Jobs and hiring rates remain below where we need them to be. Globalization and current employment trends have made it so people in their 20s with even a smidge of ambition need to be highly mobile in the job marketplace. If you buy a house in Pittsburgh, it’s not going to be easy to further your career in Miami.

Despite these obstacles, Geffner’s article offers several tips and bits of advice for millennial homebuyers. If you’re in your 20s, you feel secure in your job and city, you’ve got the wherewithal to amass money for a down payment, and you understand the hidden costs of home ownership, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t just walk up to the realtor and say, “I’ll take it.” As Geffner says, don’t let age be anything more than a number.

And remember: Eggshell white is totally the way to go.