Ilyce, the milestone compression point is the one that ties this together — college taking 6-7 years, marriage and kids pushing into the mid-30s, first home purchase at 40. Each delay compounds the next, and the financial architecture of homeownership was designed around a timeline that no longer exists. A system built for someone buying at 28 with a 30-year mortgage and retiring at 58 with a paid-off house produces very different outcomes for someone buying at 40 and carrying a payment into their 70s.The GenZ aspiration question is the one I keep turning over. "People want to own things" is true historically, but I wonder whether we're watching the early stages of a genuine preference shift or just frustrated demand that snaps back the moment rates or prices give an opening. The data you cited suggests it's still frustrated demand — 84% expecting to own before 40 doesn't sound like a generation that's abandoned the goal, it sounds like one that hasn't yet reconciled the goal with the math. The reconciliation is where things get interesting, because it either produces creative workarounds (co-buying, geographic arbitrage, alternative structures) or it produces the kind of permanent renter class that changes the political economy of housing policy entirely. The student loan piece at 8% is the detail that deserves its own article, honestly. Borrowing at 8% to fund a credential while housing appreciates at 4-5% annually means the gap is widening while they're in school. By the time they graduate, the down payment target has moved further away, not closer. That's not a timing problem — it's a structural one. Congrats on the audiobook, by the way. Curious whether the questions in the fourth edition have changed significantly from earlier versions, or whether the fundamentals haven't shifted as much as the market conditions have.