The Game is Rigged: Time to Redesign Our Broken Real Estate Model

by Becca Chacko and Reid Williams

Big shifts in technology, culture, and economics are changing how people in their 20s and 30s think about where they live. The way we buy and sell homes is stuck in the 20th century. Real estate is broken, and it’s time to redesign how it works.

For most of the last century, owning a home has been an integral part of the American dream. Yet those of us in our 20s and early 30s (“millennials”) are on track to having the lowest homeownership rates in recorded history.

It’s not that we don’t know that buying a home is usually a smart decision, especially if you’re going to stay in an area. Financially, buying a home lets us build equity every month instead of paying rent, and when we sell we keep the appreciated value above what we paid for it. If we don’t live in the home, we can rent it out for a steady income. Emotionally, it makes sense for us as well. Our homes are our castles. They are the roof decks where we’ll throw parties, the kitchens where we’ll cook dinner for our spouses, and the backyards where our children will play.

So why doesn’t our generation do it? Why can’t we take the plunge?

Read the rest of the article in IDEO Futures’ publication Redesigning Real Estate.