Do you want out of The Cult of Homeownership?
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.6 • 8.8K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or the FHFA, said the administration is “working on” a plan to introduce 50 year mortgage terms for homebuyers. But some Americans have already been working on their own plans towards homeownership… and it’s not the ‘nuclear family’ route.
Brittany is joined by NPR chief economics correspondent Scott Horsley and NPR producer & author of The Other Significant Others: Reimaging Life with Friendship at the Center, Rhaina Cohen to get into the cult of homeownership in America. Together they search for a new outlook of what ‘adulthood’ looks like.
(0:00) Will Millennials and Gen-Zers be able to buy homes?
(7:56) Why Trump's mortgage policy probably won't work
(10:53) The fundamental reasons housing is so expensive
(12:37) Want to buy a home? Consider these options.
(20:13) Responding to your comments
Follow Brittany Luse on Instagram: @bmluse
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I wonder, Raina, how is home buying or the lack thereof kind of defined the millennial or an upcoming Gen Z |
| 0:09.6 | generations? |
| 0:10.6 | God, I think about those like avocado toast columns. |
| 0:13.2 | Oh, the avocado toast, the lattes. |
| 0:16.3 | Yes, yes. |
| 0:16.9 | You know, set off, this is why millennials don't have any money. |
| 0:19.7 | And, you know, obviously, that is a very incomplete picture of why my generation and generations |
| 0:24.8 | Lois are not in the same circumstances that people like our parents were. |
| 0:32.5 | Hello, hello. |
| 0:34.0 | I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's |
| 0:38.8 | going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. |
| 0:51.2 | It seems like everywhere you turn, someone is talking about the cost of rent and housing prices. |
| 0:58.1 | And for good reason, everyone, including myself, is on the hunt for their own slice of paradise. |
| 1:02.9 | But is that even possible anymore? |
| 1:05.2 | We're getting into it with producer and editor for NPR's embedded Raina Cohen. |
| 1:10.1 | Raina is also the author of The Other Significant Others, reimagining life with friendship |
| 1:15.1 | at the center. |
| 1:15.9 | So happy to talk about this. |
| 1:17.3 | And NPR's chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsley, welcome to the show. |
| 1:21.0 | Good to be here. |
| 1:21.8 | Okay, so Raina, Scott, both of you have reported on how Americans are navigating the housing |
| 1:26.3 | market. |
... |
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