Answer: Why is the average age of the first-time homebuyer in America increasing? What do you think the future holds for young adults trying to enter the housing market?

For context, this is a question I answered on Quora

Because housing prices and rents have increased at a higher rate than wages of renters meaning the purchasing power of their wages (i.e. their real wages) has declined. As I noted in a prior post this has been the trend since at least the 1960s.

Rack-rents in The US Since 1960

And the trend has become worse since the start of the new millennium as the inflation adjusted median annual income of renters has actually declined which is why nearly half them can barley afford rent now.

Researchers are Re-Discovering the Law of Rent

Even the pandemic uptick in nominal wages was overshadowed by rent hikes.

Answer: We're always told that human resources are a company’s most expensive asset and I don't doubt that. With that said, if we're in an inflationary environment, then why don't wages ever "inflate"?

The inevitable result of having rents and realty price in general grow faster than the wages of renters is not only proportionally fewer homeowners but also arrested social development: less frequent new family formations and a rapidly aging population reliant on social security and medicare paid for by a proportionally smaller working age population. I am not say this will inevitably lead to an economic collapse but if this trend continues and the system still relies on indefinite growth to remain solvent it likely will.