🔶 Baby Boomers 1946–1964
🟣 Gen X 1965–1980
🔵 Millennials 1981–1996
🟢 Gen Z 1997–2012
The American Dream Calculator
Enter your details to see how your generation compares — and what the same home cost your parents.
Your dad bought his house when it cost 2× his salary. You're looking at 6×. Enter your birth year and city — see exactly how many years each generation had to save, and what changed.
We compare what the American Dream cost in 1975, 1990, 2000, 2010, and today — adjusted for inflation and wage growth. The calculation shows not just price increases but the ratio of years of work required to buy a median home.
Historical home prices from NAR. Wage data from BLS CPI-adjusted. Inflation adjustment using BLS CPI calculator. Mortgage rates from Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Educational use only.
🔍 Also explore: All FRC Tools · Lender Comparison · FHA by State · Lender Stress Index
Prices and rates are widely reported. Whether a lender says yes is not. In the complete 2025 federal record, denial rates across the 100 largest FHA lenders ran from 1.8% to 78.7% — same programme, same year.
And it is not simply who applies where: standardizing on state, loan amount, income, debt-to-income and loan-to-value, applicant mix explains only a 2.7× range in expected outcomes.
CFPB HMDA 2025, computed by FinanceRateCalc. Covers the highest-volume lenders published per market, not all lenders. Historical observations, not predictions. CC BY 4.0, not independently reproduced.