An increasing number of young people around the world don’t want to buy cars and apartments anymore.
Why does this happen?
The traditional measure of success – owning an apartment or/and a car. The current generation of young people has reconsidered the concept of success, which means:
- Successful people don’t buy property – they rent
- If you want to be considered successful, invest in experiences (which involves travelling, doing extreme sports and building startups)
In other words, they chose flexible schedules and financial and geographical independence over prosperity and stability.
Ownership is no longer relevant
James Hamblin, The Atlantic’s columnist, explains the phenomenon as follows:
’Over the past decade, psychologists carried out a great amount of research proving that, in terms of happiness and a sense of well-being, spending money on new experiences is much more profitable than buying new things. It brings more joy.’
Experiences help us make friends
Talking to others and having a lot of friends makes you a happier person. But would people rather hear about how you spent a year in a wild country or about how many apartments you’ve already bought?
According to Hamblin’s article, turns out people don’t like hearing about other people’s possessions very much, but they do like hearing about that time you saw Vampire Weekend.’
Buying things makes us worry
The things we own, especially if they’re very expensive, make us worry about their condition. For example, if you buy a car, you’ll flinch every time someone’s alarm sounds outside and if you buy a house, you’ll be afraid of it being robbed.
But no one can ever take the experiences you have.
Every purchase will go down in price over time
Our parents weren’t able to travel as often as we do. There wasn’t the possibility to have so much fun. They didn’t have so many opportunities to start a new business. Therefore, they invested in houses and cars, and we don’t want to do that. After all, every purchase, if it’s not a house or an apartment, will depreciate over time. And if we think about how quickly real estate depreciates during a crisis, then everything becomes even more obvious.