Keith explores how long-running social and economic shifts are redefining the American Dream—especially for younger adults who are putting off milestones like moving out, starting families, and buying homes.

He connects these trends to today's housing scarcity, elongated renter stage, and what that means for long-term rental demand and real estate investors.

Keith also zooms out to place the current moment in the sweep of American history, then welcomes Redfin Chief Economist Dr. Daryl Fairweather for a data-driven conversation on affordability, supply constraints, renting versus owning, and how demographic changes could shape the next wave of opportunities in both ownership and rental markets.

Episode Page:

GetRichEducation.com/601

For access to properties or free help with a

GRE Investment Coach, start here:

GREmarketplace.com

GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com

Get mortgage loans for investment property:

RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE

or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com

Invest with Freedom Family Investments.

For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text FAMILY to 66866

Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes.

Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"

For advertising inquiries, visit:

GetRichEducation.com/ad

Best Financial Education:

GetRichEducation.com

Get our wealth-building newsletter free—

GREletter.com

Our YouTube Channel:

www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation

@getricheducation

Complete episode transcript:

Keith Weinhold 0:01

welcome to GRE I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, learn just how far behind today's 30 year olds are then American history by decade as the nation approaches its 250th birthday. Finally, a conversation about what's next for the housing market with Redfin's chief economist Darrell fairweather today on get rich education.

Corey Coates 0:27

Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests include top selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android. Listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com

Keith Weinhold 1:10

the same place where I get my own mortgage loans is where you can get yours. Ridge lending group and MLS, 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than anyone because they specialize in income properties. They help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequel and even chat with President chailey Ridge personally, while it's on your mind, start at Ridge lending group.com that's Ridge lending group.com

Speaker 1 1:44

You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.

Keith Weinhold 1:54

Welcome to get rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, the voice of real estate investing since 2014 almost nobody talks about a really important story going on in America today. And I find this really astonishing. I mean, you could almost never think of America the same way again, as you'll hear while you've got these other headlines out there, constantly sucking oxygen out of the room, like decisions from the White House and inflation and wars. One big story. It moves so slowly that it kind of creeps up on you. It is the jaw dropping change in American society over the last 40 years. And then we'll discuss its seismic changes for real estate. And this is sourced from a Census Bureau supplement. It's about how fewer us adults reach typical life milestones by age 30, and this is partly because more adults opt for college than in previous generations. Oh, well, college doesn't sound like such a bad thing. I'll get to that. And by the way, 30 is an age that has come and gone for me, so I've lived through it. We're looking at a period from 1985 to 2025 so 40 years first, it's those that live on their own. In 1985 it was 83% today it's just 67% so then the percentage that don't live on their own and probably live with their parents or roommates, that has doubled. You see even more drastic declines for other milestones since 1985 those that have ever married from 77% down to 45% those that live with a child and the responsibility that this entails that's fallen from 59% down to 36% and those that own a home 48 down to 29% and again, this is for all 30 year olds since 1985 this steady, sliding, relentless decline of those who live on their own, are married, have a child, or own a home, is pretty stunning, and this is inside the most powerful nation on Earth. And here's the thing, this pattern from about 40 years ago, it unabatedly crosses through booms and busts and bubbles and bailouts, sort of like it didn't even notice those things. Somewhat ironically, what's grown during this time is the percentage that have a bachelor's degree. It's gone from 25 up to 43% so therefore, here we. Are. We've got this generation that's better educated than ever, and yet more of them are stuck down on the launch pad. It's like we built better rockets yet we can't light the fuse. And before I help you make sense of this and tell you what I believe the main force behind it to be, you just got to consider what an unfathomable aberration this has all become. At age 25 James Madison was the key architect of the US Constitution. A lot of constitution signers were in their 20s and 30s. At age 21 Steve Jobs started Apple in a garage at 20 Bill Gates co founded Microsoft at 19 Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook in a dorm room. And sure, some of these are exceptional examples, but these people committed early, and then they figured it out on the fly.

Keith Weinhold 5:59

Well, what about women? The US birth rate has hit an all time record low, because today, nearly half of 30 year old women are still child free. Okay, so some of this is logical. You can connect a few dots here more time in school, yeah, all right, that means later marriages and later kids. Sure, student debt that equals financial Gravity Boots that keep you in place. Urban living means smaller spaces. But when you stack all this together, like I just laid out later, it's not just later anymore. It is really later. That is the huge change that really startles you when you put all of this together and again, remember, over this same time span, 1985 to today, I've mentioned before how the average age of the first time homebuyer has ballooned from 29 up to 40. I mean 40 that can really take some time to sink in. And again, that's just the average in high cost housing areas. This number could be 45 or higher. I mean, sheesh, the starter home is now like a midlife purchase, and it's made right around the time that your back starts to make decisions for you, consider where we are here now, the term home ownership that is increasingly linked to older people. Those things home ownership and older people are increasingly synonymous terms. Now, owning a home, it's like a luxury good for the already established. I mean, it is pretty jaw dropping. And one contributor to these friends is the lack of available housing supply, still a 60 to 70% collapse in some populous northeast states, but really something like that. That's just a small thing. When you amalgamate it all together, it's become cultural really. The bigger trend that underlies this decline in meeting life milestones at age 30 is that long term true inflation exceeds wage increases over the decades, but there are big social shifts too. And by the way, I left my parents home for good at age 23 and some surely do so younger than I did marriage and children, they are the classic triggers to buy a house, and the longer that these type of milestones get postponed, the more likely people are to favor then flexibility over committing to a mortgage, and this then means that there is an elongated renter stage of life. Renters are no longer just passing through they're no longer just graduated from college, renting a year or two and then buying a home. Instead, they are planting flags and really poundin...