Fair questions. To the former, no, but to look at it simply.. you have a portion of your life where you can earn, and a portion where you don't. Buying means your largest outlay in old age disappears and your pension enables a fruitful life in your autumn years. Renting means your pension is used to cover your largest outlay and you've got sod all else to do but wait to die.
As for achieving it right away. In practice, it's the best way to do it. Once you leave home and enter the rental situation your ability to save for a deposit to buy is diminished or removed... staying at home with Mum and Dad until you find a life partner is by a long, long, long way the easiest way to save money, so it makes sense for your first move to be into your own place.
Looking at it simply, it is how you put it. You have income early on and nothing later, but that's not a given. For example if you buy multiple properties early in life, you can use them to generate rental income later on. Or, since getting even a first house is the crux of the thread, you can invest money in the market during your working years and end up with income later on, income possibly exceeding your working income.
This ties in with renting vs buying. While renting does reduce you saving/investment capability, it shouldn't remove it. Budgeting for affordability needs to be a pretty high priority, and I'd say in the case of renting, don't do it unless it's going to profit. In other words don't move out and rent unless you need to for your job. If you can work from your family's home do it. If you don't have a job, don't move out. For some people I realize this isn't an option unfortunately, but for those who are able it needs to be considered. I also don't want to imply that anyone no matter their situation has excess cash to use to prop themselves up, just that it's an option to strive for in general.
Here someone else explores the simplified math on buying vs renting. Buying tends to come out a head, but not always by leaps.
We have shared ownership properties in the UK where you pay rent AND mortgage, and can't liquidate your investment unless the co-owner can buy you out or you can sell your half (where I live that means trying to sell half a **** hole surrounded by crack heads to other crack heads with no money, or to people that don't want to live next to crack heads at any cost). Shared rentals would make a lot of sense, but in my experience land lords absolutely do not want anything other than couples or single professionals. I've considered pretending to be gay in order to rent a place with a similarly cash strapped colleague... but the first flat inspection would have been a bust!
I am not super familiar with the ins and outs of co-owning, but your points do make sense. I'm sure it has its own set of challenges that need to be accounted for, but it seems to be becoming more common in the US at least. Hopefully normalization of the practice will help with some of the drawbacks. Interestingly along with price, average house size has gone up over the years too (in the US, I'm not sure about the UK) so sharing property is a way of getting on more equal footing with past home owners who had cheaper options available just because housing footprints were smaller.
I've done it a number of times. I'm currently renting three rooms in my sisters house, and whilst it is possible, I would suggest it's not great for mental health in the long term - though this varies by person, I'm sure - but to me, feeling like an outsider in the place you live is not great, or sustainable for more than a year or two.
Certainly it won't be for everyone. Like I said before, I'd prefer to not share my space, but if I really needed to I think I could handle it as long as it let me get closer to getting my own place.
I think the societal issues in the US and UK are probably different, not least because of our differing healthcare and welfare system, and while comparisons to the past might not be that helpful they are inevitable. We will have generations in the future where more people than ever will be facing old age alone, with little pension and no investment, no accumulated wealth to liquidate, no shelter of their own, and a follow on generation that inherits nothing from parents who only just achieved financial freedom at the point they loose their income, and trade their kids inheritance for social care as they slowly die enjoying ever increasingly expensive treatments. In the UK, sustaining that means taking more taxes from working people/young people, and you can see how that ends up in a **** loop.
edit: tl;dr... in the UK I believe the housing market needs to be decimated by a massive increase in supply that excludes BTL buyers. People will have more money to spend (redistribute wealth to many people rather than just landlords and bankers) and it means that come old age they're more likely to have an asset to liquidate to pay for their OWN welfare costs instead of burdening the young.
It's definitely not a simple issue. More supply would be great but it seems like that goes against the nature of home building, especially now that we're post pandemic with all the supply and economic issues that tagged along.
Probably one of the biggest/best answers to housing problems in the US is remote work. It doubles as a big help for climate problems too. There's plenty of relatively inexpensive housing in the US, but it's not close to where you want to work.
Agreed. Interestingly I bought this house to be close to my office, just in time to become a nearly full time work from home employee. If I had a crystal ball for the work situation alone, I'd be a lot better off financially.
