From New York Times, I'm Michael Wabaro. This is the Daily. Today, for many millennials, purchasing a home has become almost entirely out of

reach, so much so that we asked our colleague David Leonhard whether it's time to change once and for all

how we think about the wisdom of buying versus renting.

It's Friday, December 1st.

David on yesterday's daily, we talked to our colleague, Gina Smylick, about why this economy has been so frustrating for younger Americans in particular, and a big reason for that, as Gina mentioned, is the cost of housing.

In particular, the cost of homeownership, which feels almost entirely out of reach for so many

millennials because interest rates are so high right now and so are home prices.

And I'll be transparent with you.

Our team here at the Daily is made up of a lot of said millennials who live in big cities, spend a lot of time on Zillow and have gotten very frustrated and they really want to know will they ever be able to afford to buy a home?

So that caught us thinking, can we help listeners think about

whether buying a home really makes sense right now? And naturally, David, we

thought of you, you've been writing about economics and housing for a very long time.

You once helped create a calculator for people to use to determine if home ownership is right for them,

and you just wrote an entire book about the American dream of which homeownership is so

central. I did. So if you're somebody thinking about buying a home right now,

should you just pretty much give up on the idea, give up on the idea that has been seen as a ticket to adulthood and a reliable path to creating wealth,

and just accept that you're going to be a renter.

Yes, for most people the answer is yes, you should give up on the idea, you shouldn't feel bad

about it.

Renting has this unfair stigma in this country.

It kind of does, doesn't it?

It does.

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