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More Homebuyers Are Living With Adult Children

On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors released its 2017 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends study, showing generational differences of recent homebuyers and sellers, and how millennials (ages 26 and under) have a tendency to buy outside of city limits and to use a real estate professional for in their search.

The newly-released survey also shows how the soaring cost of renting is influencing the decision of middle-aged parents to buy a home with their young adult children in mind. Statistics demonstrate that the younger boomers were the ones purchasing a multi-generational home (20 percent; 16 percent in 2016), with the main reason for doing so was having adult children still living at home, or having moved back (30 percent; 27 percent in 2016).

"The job market is very healthy for young adults with a college education, but repaying student debt and dealing with ever-increasing rents on an entry-level salary are forcing many to either shack-up with several roommates or move back home," said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. "This growing trend of delayed household formation is one of the main contributors to the nation's low homeownership rate."

While getting older and with kids in tow, the need for more space at an affordable price is increasingly pushing millennial buyers outside the city–only 15 percent of millennial buyers chose an urban area.

Yun believes that many Generation X (37 to 51 years old) households who bought their first home and started a family often had career fails and even job losses during the economic uncertainty during and after the Great Recession. With little or no equity in their home, these Gen X households are not buying again, because of debt.

The survey also finds that 90 percent of buyers and sellers, after researching their options online, still consider a real estate agent as an integral part of a real estate transaction.

"Online and mobile technology is increasingly giving consumers a glut of real estate data at their disposal," said NAR President William E. Brown, a Realtor from Alamo, California. "However, at the end of the day, buyers and sellers of all ages seek and value a realtor’s ability to dissect this information and use their expertise and market insights to coach buyers and sellers through the complexities of a real estate transaction."

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