Report Shows Hurdles Faced by Millennial Homebuyers

The majority of millennials not only want to own a home, but 84% of millennials in 2019 considered it a major part of the American Dream. However, millennials are struggling to reach that financial milestone.

According to the Urban Institute, nearly 10% fewer millennials own homes than their Gen X and baby boomer counterparts at the same age.

For the generation who stepped into adulthood in the wake of the Great Recession, many financial goals are delayed because they spent more on their education, took longer to establish careers and families, and trudged through stagnant wages.

Approximately 76% of millennial home buyers’ parents owned a home when they were growing up, which could have a strong impact on their perception of homeownership as a rite of passage.

According to recent trends, more millennials are becoming homeowners, making up 45% of homebuyers in 2018.

Clearly millennials are eager to purchase homes, but what are the obstacles they’re facing?

To learn more about the illusive millennial, we conducted our second annual Home Buyer Survey. We surveyed 1,000 Americans who planned to purchase a home in 2020. Respondents answered 21 questions about their finances, plans, and desires related to their future home.

Specific detail about the methodology and a link to the survey can be found in the methodology section at the end of this report.

Read the 2020 Millennial Home Buyer Report.

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Francesca Ortegren is a Research Associate at Clever Real Estate, the free online service that connects you with top agents to save money on commissions. She focuses on helping people understand complex data, real estate, finances, business, and the economy by researching various topics, analyzing data, and reporting useful insights for general consumption. Before working at Clever, Francesca earned her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Texas Tech University, conducted behavioral research on memory, learning, and teaching, and taught college-level research methods and statistics courses.