With home prices soaring out of reach and rates hot, Americans are doing whatever they can to lower their monthly payments, according to a series of new reports from Redfin.
The typical monthly housing payment hit a record high of $2,721 in the four weeks ending March 24, up 10% YOY.
A combination of prices and rates is keeping homeownership unaffordable for the average family, which earns $30,000 less per year than necessary to comfortably purchase a house.
First-time buyers have it even worse thanks to boiling competition for low-priced homes. To afford a starter home, they need to earn almost twice as much as before the pandemic.
With these pressures on Americans’ wallets, buyers are looking for other ways…
Young homebuyers tolerate high mortgage rates better than their older counterparts.
Gen Z and Millennial respondents to a new survey say they will accept rates as high as 6.3% and 6.2%, respectively, in order to buy a home in 2024. Gen X and Baby Boomers, in comparison, won’t accept any rate above 6%.
The survey, ServiceLink’s State of Homebuying Report, focused on Americans who bought or tried to buy a home in the last four years.
Younger buyers also expressed more determination to buy this year, with 63% of Gen Z respondents and 59% of Millennials saying they plan to, compared to 45% of Gen X and 21% of Baby Boomers.
Taken together, 47% of all respondents plan to purchase…
Young Americans’ homebuying outlook just keeps getting worse.
Almost one in five Millennials (18%) and 12% of Gen Z respondents to a Redfin survey believe they will never be able to own a home.
They overwhelmingly see affordability as their primary barrier, with half citing high prices as their biggest concern. Just under half of respondents say they can’t save for a downpayment, coming in second.
Notably, just over one-third directly blamed mortgage rates for the state of the market. Other concerns include paying off student loans and being able to make monthly mortgage payments.
“The worsening housing affordability crisis has an outsized impact on Gen Zers and Millennials because they’re much less likely to own a home than older…
By KIMBERLEY HAAS
Addressing affordability issues by allowing for creative living solutions may be the key to getting more Millennials into homeownership.
According to the 2023 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report published by the National Association of Realtors, the share of Millennial buyers has declined. Millennials between 24 and 42 years old made up 28% of all buyers surveyed.
The share of Millennial buyers dropped because Baby Boomers between 58 and 76 years old were on the move in the last half of 2021 and the first half of 2022. They made up 39% of buyers and were the largest share of homebuyers, taking the top spot from Millennials, who had held the position for eight years.
Overall,…
Co-buying has gained popularity as Americans search for ways to afford a home. But for all its benefits, it also comes at a cost.
A new survey from LendingTree found that 29% of Americans would consider co-buying a home with someone other than a spouse or significant other. That number varies by generation, broken down into 36% of Millennials, 25% of Gen Xers, and 13% of baby boomers.
Most of those open to co-buying said they would prefer to buy with a family member who wasn’t their spouse (63%), while a good friend or current roommate would suit just over half (57%).
Six-figure earners are the most likely income group to consider co-buying (38%), while those making between $35,000 and…
Despite being the largest cohort of potential homebuyers in the country, Millennials are lagging behind other generations in purchases.
That applies to Baby Boomers now – who are snatching up the few homes for sale thanks to home equity and greater savings – and Boomers when they were the same age as Millennials today. Just over 50% of Millennials owned a home in 2022, compared with 56.5% of Boomers in 1990 and 58.2% of Gen X in 2006.
Even the youngest generation, Gen Z, is tracking ahead of Millennials in homeownership at the same age.
A combination of forces has made it difficult for Millennials to become homeowners. Ongoing bouts of economic uncertainty in 2001, 2008, and today have hindered…
Gen Z is proving that young Americans want to be homeowners and are willing to prioritize it.
According to new Redfin data, Gen Z is ahead of Millennials when it comes to homeownership, with 37% of Gen Z respondents already owning a home or planning to purchase one within the next five years.
Only 32% of Millennials said they have taken that step or plan to within the same time frame.
“The rising tide lifted Gen Z homebuyers in 2020 and 2021; they were part of the pandemic-driven homebuying frenzy,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather.
Gen Z is more likely to prioritize homeownership as a financial goal, with 60% of Gen Z respondents citing it as a top priority…
Members of Gen Z and Millenials are seeing their personal inflation rates cool as rent prices moderate.
These demographics have lower personal inflation rates than the overall population for the first time in two years, according to a new CPI analysis from Redfin.
Gen Zers and Millennials who signed a new lease in December saw the cost of their goods and services rise 5.6% and 6.1%, respectively, compared to a 6.5% increase for the average American.
Gen Zers overall now have a lower personal inflation rate than the U.S. population for the first time since the beginning of 2021.
Inflation was heavily impacted by shelter costs, which make up around a third of the value of goods and services included…
As first-time buyers struggle to find an affordable home, many Millennials say they are willing to co-buy in order to access bigger mortgages. Pairadime, a new fractional ownership solution with a focus on co-buying, surveyed 1,000 Millennials who say they don’t want to wait for marriage to co-buy a home. Instead, they want to co-buy with their parents, friends, or other family members in order to afford a house in current market conditions. Only 4% of respondents said they would wait until marriage to buy with another person. “During the pandemic, people have been renting and they may have wanted more space, and so they looked at, perhaps, their roommate and decided, ‘Let’s go buy a home together,'” Jessica Lautz,…
Millennials are often touted as getting the short stick when it comes to the housing market. Over the housing boom of the last two years, many Millennials who recently reached prime homebuying age started looking to buy their first home. But high competition and limited inventory have made this a notoriously difficult market for first-time buyers. This has been intensified by rising home prices. As of 2021, the average millennial with a mortgage owed $255,527 in mortgage debt, up 10% from the 2020 average and 16% from 2019. But while Millennials may be the largest buying cohort right now, Gen Z is right on their heels. Gen Z places much stock in the value of owning a home. Nearly 60%…
