Housing is so expensive, even a $87 billion Wall Street bank is giving workers $6.5K in cash to get on the property ladder

The oldest bank in the U.S, $87 billion financial services firm Bank of New York (BNY), has just launched a new homeowner program for its U.S. employees earning under six figures. Now, its staffers who earn $100,000 or less each year may qualify for $6,500 to be used towards buying their first home.

The Wall Street bank said in a press release that the $6,500 benefit works to “address affordability pressures” and assist its American staffers in navigating the daunting journey of homeownership. By giving its staffers in the lowest tax brackets a boost in the homebuying process, BNY is targeting one of the biggest affordability crises straining its workforce. 

“Homeownership is a pathway to financial security and economic prosperity, and we’re committed to helping our people reach it,” Robin Vince, the CEO of BNY, said in the program’s press release, adding that these benefits help “build a more resilient economy.”

All U.S. employees will also have access to homeowner education, including digital modules and live seminars that teach budgeting, credit readiness, mortgage options, closing costs, and long-term planning. Plus, all of its American workers will receive special mortgage perks.

America’s housing affordability crisis is creating a new status quo 

Americans are up against an affordability crisis, from soaring gas prices to untenable child care costs—and housing is gobbling up huge chunks of their paychecks. Buying a home has become so untenable that it’s changing the status quo of homeownership. 

In 2025, the U.S. housing market witnessed two worrying trends; the proportion of first-time buyers plummeted to a record low of 21%, and the average age of these new homeowners soared to an all-time high of 40, according to a National Association of Realtors report released last year. In 1991, the median age of a first-time home buyer was 28 years old; last year, Gen Zers, who represent the lowest earners of any generation in the job market, only made up 3% of home buyers. 

“The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory,” Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, said in a statement last year. “The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007—right before the Great Recession.”

And wages aren’t increasing fast enough to keep pace with inflated housing costs. The median house price was 5.81 times higher than the average household income in 2022—up from a ratio of 4.52 in 2010, and 3.57 in 1984, according to a 2025 paper by Northwestern University’s Seung Hyeong Lee and the University of Chicago’s Younggeun Yoo. As homeownership continues to shift further out of reach, people are discouraged from saving enough for a down payment, the authors warned. 

Nearly 70% of workers would quit their job for another with housing benefits 

CEOs may believe that quirky office perks like beer on tap or ping pong tables will lure in talent—but many workers are eyeing up bigger benefits that improve their quality of life.

Nearly half of remote workers said they’d return to their offices if their company offered them housing benefits, according to a 2024 study from insurance firm JW Surety Bonds. And it’s not only enough to drag them off their couches and back to their desks—staffers would potentially jump ship for an employer extending the benefit. 

Around 69% were so desperate for employer-led housing perks that they would change jobs, or their careers, in order to work at a company that offers them. Professionals will even bargain off their precious PTO for housing assistance. More than two in five respondents said they’d sacrifice up to 15 days of vacation time—amounting to three full weeks, including the weekends—to get help with homebuying costs. 

Like BNY, other companies have caught on to the trend. For instance, employer-sponsored housing has grown popular in Japan, as the country’s cost-of-living crisis has sent many workers into hard times. In 2023, Nippon Life, one of Japan’s largest insurers, built a 200-room building for males in a sought-after residential area near Tokyo Disneyland. It’s estimated that the business’ workers living there pay under a third of what rent would be for a comparable living option in the area; the company also provides subsidized housing for its working women. 

Trading house Itochu has also invested in a new housing facility for its working men, just a half-hour train ride from the company’s Tokyo office. The living accommodations provide breakfast and weekday dinners to employees, alongside other perks including a bar, café, and sauna. Itochu also opened a facility for its female workers in 2025.