A recent poll shows that 86% of current renters in the United States would like to buy a home but can't afford to, as the idea feels more and more out of reach.
Among those same renters who can't afford to buy a home right now, 54% think it's unlikely they'll ever be able to, according to the CNN poll.
Younger people are especially having a hard time buying homes right now.
The poll found that 90% of renters younger than 45 say they'd like to buy but can't afford it, compared with 79% of those age 45 and above.
But younger Americans remain optimistic that the situation will change.
The damage caused by surging home prices and rising mortgage rates has created an affordability crisis.
Brent Bjornsen, a 39-year-old pediatrician and father of two in Phoenix, is renting a home as he struggles to pay off his student debt.
"Buying a home is absolutely something we would love to do," Bjornsen told CNN.
"It seems out of reach."
Bjornsen's wife also works part-time at an elementary school but faced a significant financial blowback when Hurricane Harvey flooded their Houston apartment.
"We're straddled with seemingly insurmountable debt," he said.
"Homeownership seems impossible, and that hurts for two kids of Baby Boomers and feels like a disappointment."
Given that homeownership is the ticket to wealth generation in America, two-thirds of Americans currently renting say their family owned a home when they were growing up, according to CNN.
In recent news, one of the major obstacles to homeownership-mortage rates-has subsided a bit, and if the Federal Reserve can deliver interest rate cuts this fall and winter, rates could decrease even further.
The median existing-home price climbed to a record of $426,900 in June, said the National Association of Realtors.
That was 4.1% higher than a year earlier and the second straight month of record home prices, based on data going back to 1999.
Jeremy Andersson, a digital marketing specialist and millenial living in Atlana, told the news outlet that he's lost hope altogether.
"We have given up on homeownership."
The 40-year-old father of twin toddlers wanted to buy a home when his wife became pregnant in 2019.
"We felt the societal pressure to buy a house because that's the American Dream, right? Have a family and buy a house," he said.
Seventy percent of Americans call owning a home essential to achieving the American dream, the CNN poll found.
That's roughly two-thirds of those currently renting.
The father stressed that it's become unrealistic to find anything affordable for a family of four, claiming,
"I'm not going to play your game anymore. I'm done."
"We did everything we were supposed to do. We went to college. We did well. We got jobs. We're not felons," he added.
"I've worked my tail off, and so has my wife."
