Share of Millennial Homeowners Falling

Millennial homeownership witnessed a 20% drop—nearly 1.9 million people—between 2009 and 2016, according to new data from ValuePenguin. 

The report found that the population of homeowners under the age of 35 fell from 9.2 million in 2009 to 7.3 million in 2016. Additionally, the number of millennials who are renting during that same period increased from 14.6 million to 15.2 million.

ValuePenguin said that these millennial homeowners accounted for more than 12% of all U.S. homeowners in 2009. Also, within the millennial age group, the number of homes owned by millennials fell by 18.5% over eight years.  

The trend of declining millennial homeownership reversed in 2017, which is also the first year since 2009 that the number of millennials renting did not increase. Millennial homeownership grew to 7.5 million in 2017, while the share of renters under the age of 35 stayed at 15.2 million. ValuePenguin states that nearly 67% of all millennial households were renters as of 2017.

Also, the overall drop of homeowners under the age of 35 supports the claim of millennials staying with their parents longer into adulthood, as the number of homeowners under the age of 35 has fallen by 1.1 million since 2009—a drop of 4.7%. 

“This suggests that in most years, non-millennial homeowners who aged out of the under-35 group were not being replaced by an equal or greater number of first-time millennial homebuyers,” the report states. “Meanwhile, the renter population grew slightly as some of the youngest millennials formed independent renter households for the first time—but not in numbers large enough to increase the total population of households under 35 years old.”

The largest barrier to homeownership to millennials continues to be price, as a report by HireAHelper finds that buying a home may be out of reach as income hasn’t been able to keep up with rising home values. 

The report states that rent costs for baby boomers, when they were entering the housing market, were equal to 38.1% of monthly incomes. Rent costs equaled 35.9% for Gen Xers and 35.7% for millennials. 

According to the report the average home for millennials is worth 6.4 years’ of income, which is a 15% increase from the 5.6 years’ of income for an average home for booth baby boomers and Gen Xers.