Do you think that the generational wealth gap will widen as a result of the housing affordability problem?

For context, this is a question I answered on Quora

Yes, my wealth is 3x larger with an apartment to my name than it was before I purchased it. That’s a much smaller jump than most people will make between renting and owning because the average homeowner has 40x the wealth of the average renter.

These are 2019 numbers so the gap is even larger now. The average homeowner likely now has 60x the wealth of the average renter after the post pandemic speculative frenzy fueled by near zero interest rates and lock downs on the productive economy that steered all of that cheap money towards real estate speculation. This chasm will only widen as realty prices appreciate and rent hikes consume a larger portion of renter’s income and erode their savings, especially now with private equity firms buying up larger portions of rental housing inventory and jacking up rents through the stratosphere. Private equity already owns about 10% of rental apartments, including 20% of rental apartments in Georgia and North Carolina, and this is likely to grow in the future. Almost 50% of renter households are rent burdened (i.e. have to spend more than 30% of household income on rent) and that percentage is likely to increases proportionately with private equity’s buy out of the rental housing market. If you don’t own a home now, you will have a much harder time buying one in the future and even treading water and not ending up homeless will require financial gymnastics.