'Some people did everything right': I lost my home in the Great Recession. I rent in my 50s. Why is that judged as failure?

By Quentin Fottrell

'I earn $110,000 a year'

"Saving for a down payment is not easy in a major metropolitan area when a house costs three to four times your annual income." (Photo subject is a model.)

Dear Quentin,

I read the letter about mortgage applications and your response (As a mortgage loan officer, I rejected wealthy couples. Here's what can get your application declined.), and I agree with much of what this reader says. Living within your means, avoiding (unnecessary) debt and saving are good advice. There's a lot to be said for the discipline of "Joe Six-Pack," as the mortgage loan officer described him, who earns less but saves and eventually buys a home.

But there's another side of this that often gets overlooked - which, in fairness, you did address somewhat in your answer. I'm in my 50s, and the Great Recession hit at the worst time in my life. I wasn't a fool, but I did try to build a life for myself by buying a house. Still, the housing crash had consequences that lasted far longer than the recession itself. I lost my job and eventually my home. I earn $110,000 a year and it's still hard.

For people my age, getting knocked off the property ladder can be very hard to recover from. Those who already owned a home and held on to it through the downturn benefited enormously from the rise in property values that followed. Those who lost a home, sold at the wrong time or couldn't buy during those years missed out on that appreciation entirely. It was a matter of timing for many people, not reckless abandon as the mortgage loan officer would like us to believe.

Some people did everything right and were caught on the wrong side of an economic shock. Let me also tell you that saving for a down payment is not easy in a major metropolitan area when a house costs three to four times your annual income. So my message to your letter writer is to be careful about turning a lesson in spending too much into a judgment of people who haven't hit the same milestones. I am happy for friends and family who have homes, but it still stings.

Why judge other people for not getting on the property ladder?

Renter in His 50s

You can email The Moneyist with any financial and ethical questions at qfottrell@marketwatch.com. The Moneyist regrets he cannot reply to questions individually.

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Homeownership in the U.S. has averaged 61% in Gallup polls since 2012, down from 70% between 2001 and 2011.

Dear Renter,

We are all on our own paths, and I'd bet that people who judge others for having less are insecure around those who have more.

You did not come out of the 2008-09 recession unscathed, and I can see why it rankles when somebody in a position of authority, even power, talks critically about would-be homebuyers putting too much money on credit cards or not saving enough of their salary, even though they earn a six-figure income. You have a right to feel the way you do, and you furthermore have a right to express it. I'm glad you chose to do that here.

For the record, the mortgage loan officer in question struck me as alarmist and at times judgmental. "People in the U.S. need to wake up and not be compulsive," she wrote. "Quit buying things you really don't need. It's that way with the federal government as well, and based on that, we'd better get real quick or we're going to have a financial crisis that makes the Great Recession of 2008 look like a picnic."

It's painful to have had a home once upon a time only to lose it, and to realize how much you lost. It was, sad to say, not an uncommon story during the last recession, when the unemployment rate rose to 10% and the number of foreclosure filings hit 2.8 million in 2009. I believe it helps enormously to know that this was a shared, collective trauma, and that many millions of people around the world also went through what you experienced.

Many millions of people around the world went through what you experienced.

High interest rates - the 30-year mortgage rate hit 7.3% in early October, nearly three times its level five years ago - and high house prices mean that buying a home remains out of reach for people who no longer have home equity to leverage, as well as for many first-time buyers. There's also a dearth of inventory in many markets, which has led to a generation of renters in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. It can be a bitter pill to swallow.

At $110,000 a year, or $9,200 a month before taxes, lenders prefer housing costs at or below 30% of gross income. If you took a mortgage rate of 7.3%, even with money set aside for property taxes and insurance, you could afford a $300,000 property. That amount would be further reduced by student debt, a car payment and/or credit-card debt. And that's before you pull the money together for a down payment.

You would need to drum up $90,000 for a 20% down payment. That makes your task even more challenging after a job loss or foreclosure. Location matters too, as you say you live in a major metropolitan area. In the Midwest and South, $110,000 could buy a decent home, but in the New York, Boston, Los Angeles or Seattle areas, median prices can top $800,000, depending on the neighborhood.

Related: 'I don't want to die on the sales floor': I'm 67 and earn $19.50 an hour at a big-box store. When can I finally retire?

Homeownership rates have fallen

A recent Gallup poll shed light on what you are experiencing, and the results did not bode well for a generation of renters who would like to get their foot on the property ladder. The share of U.S. non-homeowners who expect to buy a home within five years has dropped to 25%, the lowest level Gallup has recorded since it began asking the question more than a decade ago. The poll found that 61% of Americans say they own their primary residence, while 34% rent.

Homeownership in the U.S. has averaged 61% in Gallup polls since 2012. Some 28% of non-homeowners told Gallup that they expect to buy a home within 10 years and just 25% said they expect to do so within five years, while 45% do not think they will do so at all in the foreseeable future. More worryingly, all of those figures have dropped over the past 10 years.

My colleagues Jillian Berman and Venessa Wong recently wrote about young Americans who feel shut out of the housing market - seemingly forever, in some cases. As they pointed out, the median age of renters in America now hovers around 42, up from 38 in 2006, and nearly one-third of renters have a college degree or higher, compared with 22% in 2010, according to Census Bureau data. Meanwhile, the national average rent is now $1,665 per month.

Renters are getting older, even if younger adults make up the largest share.

There has been some good news for renters. A 2026 report on rental housing from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies said that after record-high increases during the pandemic, national rent growth has stayed near zero since mid-2023. Most markets experienced either small declines or small increases. In 74 of the largest 150 markets, asking rents fell, while 70 recorded modest growth of less than 4%. Rents rose by 4% or more in only six markets.

Perhaps the most significant takeaway is that renters are getting older, even if younger adults still make up the largest share of the renting population. Although there were roughly 6.1 million renters in your age group (50-59) in 2024, that number is down from 6.7 million in 2014. But there were more renters ages 60 to 69 (5.4 million versus 4.4 million in 2014) and 70 to 79 (3.4 million versus 2.3 million). That is a mixed picture at best.

Some 13% of renters are in their 50s, based on the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Adding up all those people from the JCHS report, 10.9 million people ages 60 and over are renters. That affects their financial security now and when they retire. Housing remains the biggest monthly expense for most people, and having to pay rent in your 60s does not make retirement any easier. Keep on saving and planning.

Take a bow. You are a survivor and, given the kind of upheaval you have endured, you are living a different kind of American dream.

Related: I'm 71 and still working. I earn $108,000 a year. Am I doing the right thing?

Check out The Moneyist's private Facebook group, where members help answer life's thorniest money issues. Post your questions, weigh in on the latest Moneyist columns or email The Moneyist on qfottrell@marketwatch.com.

More columns from Quentin Fottrell:

My wife never went back to work after raising our kids. Do I have to share my retirement savings 50/50?

'I'm never selling': I'm 47 and buy bitcoin with every dollar I earn. Am I crazy?

'I don't want to die on the sales floor': I'm 67 and earn $19.50 an hour at a big-box store. When can I finally retire?

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-Quentin Fottrell

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