For the first time, more than half of millennials own a home. The rest are finding it increasingly out of reach.
The millennial homeownership rate hit 51.5% in 2022, US Census data show. It’s been a slog to get there for the generation that came of age during the financial crisis — by age 30, 42% of millennials owned their homes compared to 48% of Gen X and more than half of baby boomers.
And those who are still renting are starting to think they’ll never get there. In fact, nearly one in four millennials plans to rent forever, up from one in seven just three years earlier, according to a survey from real estate site Apartment List.
Most millennials who aren’t homeowners say they can’t afford to buy right now, either because they don’t have the down payment or because they can’t afford the monthly mortgage costs. About 67% of those who want to own a home at some point in their lives have no money saved for a down payment and 18% have less than $10,000, according to Apartment List. About 42% say one of their biggest obstacles to homeownership is bad credit, up from 39% in 2018.
Millennials, the generation born between 1981 and 1996, are falling behind other generations when it comes to wealth, hit by the 2008 economic crisis, stagnating wages, skyrocketing house prices during the pandemic, and now rising interest rates and inflation. Nearly half are living paycheck to paycheck, according to 2022 data, and few own stocks or are free of student debt.
Those who’ve managed to buy a home are mostly in more affordable cities, with 63% of millennials in Grand Rapids, Michigan, owning homes, compared to just 27% in Los Angeles.