Why Gen Z Can't Buy a House
- Slide deck
- Guided notes
- Guided notes teacher key
- Activity + answer key
- Quiz + answer key
- Exit ticket + answer key
- Teacher guide
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What students do
- Calculate the monthly mortgage payment on a starter home at a 7% rate versus the 2021 rate of about 3%
- Compare the median age of first-time homebuyers across generations using the lesson's age chart
- Rank the four policy options, upzoning, builder incentives, down-payment assistance, and rate cuts, from most to least effective before defending a top pick to a partner
- Argue for one policy solution, upzoning, builder incentives, down-payment assistance, or rate cuts, using the lesson's data
What it covers
- The four causes of the housing affordability crisis, mortgage rates near 7%, prices up 50% since 2019, a 4-million-unit supply shortage, and single-family zoning
- Why the U.S. price-to-income ratio climbed from about 3 in 1985 to over 7 today
- How single-family zoning covers roughly 75% of U.S. residential land and blocks new supply
- What's pushed the median age of a first-time homebuyer later with each generation
Learning targets
- Identify the four causes of the modern U.S. housing affordability crisis: high mortgage rates, high prices, the supply shortage, and zoning rules that block building
- Compare the median age of Gen Z and millennial first-time homebuyers to earlier generations and explain what shifted
- Evaluate proposed policy solutions (zoning reform, builder incentives, down-payment assistance, rate cuts) using lesson data
From one teacher to another
The data in this lesson finally explains something my students already feel, since more than a few of them have heard their parents say they'll never afford a house here. Walking through mortgage rates, prices, the supply shortage, and zoning as four separate, addable causes stops the conversation from collapsing into "the economy is just bad" and gets them naming an actual policy lever. The exit ticket has them pick one fix and defend the choice with a specific rate, price, or policy detail pulled straight from the deck.
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