BFR
Bio-Reference Laboratories Inc.
stock NYSE

Can they? It's very situational. Will they if they can? Much less likely. People make emotional/social decisions that are contrary to cold analysis, and justify it with logic after the fact. Personal anecdote:
Where I used to live in the Midwest, rent was less than a mortgage-purchase on a similar sized house, even before property taxes, and property wasn't appreciating much if at all, and certainly not in real value. So, I rented. I also didn't buy 3 massive furnace repair/replacements and a new roof among other things like property taxes, and had a good working relationship with the landlord. This was a unicorn situation and I knew it. I put the difference into the markets starting in 2003 and in the generally great period (except for that 2008 thing) the investment grew and grew. In all of that I faced a lot of social pressure among my colleagues (academics, including economists) to own a house no matter the financial penalty.
This is all very contrary to the financial story that Realtors love to tell (see the lack of appreciation above), but if you run the actual spreadsheet (or read economic studies) you may find that the answer very much isn't home ownership for a particular family. It's different for everyone but most people can't or won't do the math, much less act on the information.
Currently I live in the West, where it is a radically different environment, so I used that growth to fund a house purchase here, and here it's probably gaining value faster than anything I have - completely opposite to my previous situation.
> will generations that rent be able to accumulate as quickly as a population? Or is this a wealth divider?
I'd say the generations won't be able to accumulate in general. Rental housing is a substantial component of Black Rock and similar corporations and if they're in on the BFR market that means there's wealth to be extracted. Wages have not kept up with costs for many occupations, and reltals are scarce in many markets so there is likely to be a fragmentation of wealth.

Can they? It's very situational. Will they if they can? Much less likely. People make emotional/social decisions that are contrary to cold analysis, and justify it with logic after the fact. Personal anecdote:
Where I used to live in the Midwest, rent was less than a mortgage-purchase on a similar sized house, even before property taxes, and property wasn't appreciating much if at all, and certainly not in real value. So, I rented. I also didn't buy 3 massive furnace repair/replacements and a new roof among other things like property taxes, and had a good working relationship with the landlord. This was a unicorn situation and I knew it. I put the difference into the markets starting in 2003 and in the generally great period (except for that 2008 thing) the investment grew and grew. In all of that I faced a lot of social pressure among my colleagues (academics, including economists) to own a house no matter the financial penalty.
This is all very contrary to the financial story that Realtors love to tell (see the lack of appreciation above), but if you run the actual spreadsheet (or read economic studies) you may find that the answer very much isn't home ownership for a particular family. It's different for everyone but most people can't or won't do the math, much less act on the information.
Currently I live in the West, where it is a radically different environment, so I used that growth to fund a house purchase here, and here it's probably gaining value faster than anything I have - completely opposite to my previous situation.
> will generations that rent be able to accumulate as quickly as a population? Or is this a wealth divider?
I'd say the generations won't be able to accumulate in general. Rental housing is a substantial component of Black Rock and similar corporations and if they're in on the BFR market that means there's wealth to be extracted. Wages have not kept up with costs for many occupations, and reltals are scarce in many markets so there is likely to be a fragmentation of wealth.