“I’d like to [buy a home] somewhere in Massachusetts, but I’ll settle for anywhere that isn’t the deep south or the midwest or L.A,” said Kirstin Kelley, a 25-year-old writer based in Portland, Oregon. “It feels moderately doable, but only if I stick to paying the minimum on my student loans and eventually get them forgiven.”
Kelley and her partner have a total of around $150,000 in student debt, a daunting figure that she says keeps her stuck in “survival mode.”
Also standing in Kelley’s way of home ownership is the transient nature of her work life.
“I think we’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen, but it’s only economically expedient [to buy a home] if we know we’re going to stay for more than a year or two or even three, and right now things are just far too up in the air,” Kelley said.
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