Will You Ever Be Able to Buy a House?

Will Gen Z ever be able to buy a house? Timothy Terrell starts by clearing away the popular explanations—institutional investors buy under two percent of homes, the median first-time buyer is still 33, and a 1950s house was half the size, often without indoor plumbing. Then he turns to the causes that hold up: Federal Reserve inflation inflating home prices while first-time buyers sit on cash, zoning rules that let existing owners vote down new supply, and Dodd-Frank regulations that killed off the small mortgages starter homes depend on.Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 22, 2026.Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.