Fewer Millennials are Living Alone

Fewer millennials are living alone than in recent years, and the number has been dropping for a decade, according to according to a recent Zillow report on living trends among 23-to-34-year-olds.

Across the U.S., almost 9 percent of millennials live alone, a number that's been declining since 2005, likely due to unaffordable rents and rising home prices, Zillow reported. Consequently, millennials choose to live with their parents or find roommates.

Zillow found that between 2000 and 2013, the number of millennials living with family increased 46 percent. Similarly, 21 percent of millennials across the U.S. are still living at home with, “proving that living with friends or family may be one of the ways to afford housing in some of the nation's hottest markets,” the report stated.

However, all is not even distribution. Some markets are seeing a definite rise in millennials moving out on their own. Richmond, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo have the highest percentages of millennials living on their own, 15, 14, and 14, respectively. Zillow credited Richmond's strong labor market, where employment is up almost 4 percent over the past year, and relatively high incomes among millennials, averaging $49,500, as keys to their independence there.

In Oklahoma City, 13 percent of millennials live on their own, with a median income of $40,000 a year. “At this salary, they are able to afford almost 22 percent of homes,” Zillow reported.

In San Antonio, 10 percent of millennials live alone, but the average millennial salary of $48,000 allows them to afford the biggest share of homes on the market, 28 percent. Conversely, almost the same percentage of millennials in Detroit make an average $36,000 a year, and that gives them access to the least share of housing, a mere 1.4 percent.

"With home prices and rents rising as fast as they are, it's a common assumption that young adults in many cases cannot afford to live alone," said Zillow’s chief economist Svenja Gudell. "Though that may be true in some markets, there's still a large number of amazing places across the U.S. that are prime for millennials to thrive independently.”

Still, Zillow predicts that house values across the nation are up 5 percent over the past year and rents are up almost 3 percent, leading the company to forecast that rents will increase another 3 percent by this time next year, making it difficult for millennials to live on their own.