Though it may sometimes seem as if millennials are destined to rent or live in their parents’ basements forever, they make up the largest share of homebuyers in the U.S., surpassing older (and richer) generations, according to a new report from LendingTree.
To highlight where millennials are looking to buy, LendingTree’s new report analyzed mortgage offers for users of the LendingTree platform across the nation’s 50 largest metros throughout 2022.
The report found that across the 50 largest metros, an average of 52.88% of mortgage offers went to millennials, and millennials make up the majority of buyers in 37 of the nation’s 50 largest metros. Even in the metros where a majority of purchase requests don’t come from millennials, the generation still makes up the largest group of buyers.
Key highlights:
- Millennials make up the largest share of potential homebuyers in San Jose, California; Denver, Colorado, and Boston, Massachusetts. In San Jose, 63.57% of mortgages were offered to millennials. In Denver and Boston, the figures were 61.35% and 60.59%, respectively.
- Millennials in Las Vegas, Nevada; Birmingham, Alabama, and Phoenix, Arizona make up the lowest share of potential buyers — though still substantial. Across these metros, an average of 44.66% of mortgages were offered to millennials.
- Among millennials, potential homebuyers are oldest in San Francisco, California; New Orleans, Louisiana, and Miami, Florida. The average age among potential homebuyers in these three metros was 33.31 years old.
- The youngest potential millennial homebuyers were an average of 32.16 in Salt Lake City, Utah; Birmingham, and Denver.
- Potential millennial homebuyers have the highest average credit scores in San Jose, San Francisco and Boston. The average credit score for these three metros was 748.
- The average credit score for millennial homebuyers in the metros where millennials had the lowest credit scores—Memphis, Tennessee, Birmingham and Las Vegas—was 713.
- Expensive California metros San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles were the areas that required millennials to put down the largest down payments on their homes. The average down payment across these three areas was $129,965.
- The metros where down payments were the smallest—St. Louis, Missouri; Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—had an average payment of $39,209.
Major takeaway:
As for why millennials dominate the housing market, Jacob Channel, LendingTree’s Senior Economist and author of the report, explained that “Many millennials are at an age where they’re starting families and earning more money. This means they not only have more of a financial ability to become homeowners, but they’re incentivized by reasons like needing to provide for their loved ones in a way they may not have been when more of them were in their 20s.”
“In that same vein, while buying a new home might make more sense when you’re younger and starting a family or becoming established in your career, it often starts to make less sense as you age — especially if you’re planning to finance your purchase with a loan,” continued Channel. “Millennials are at a place where buying often makes the most sense. And as millennials age, younger generations will likely supplant them as the largest share of homebuyers on the market — even if those younger generations might also have to deal with increased financial hardships related to buying.”
Channel concluded that “Even if millennials aren’t usually as financially well off as older generations are, that’s not stopping many of them from jumping into the housing market. In fact, though it may be surprising given how often we hear about the financial struggles that millennials face, members of the generation make up the largest group of homebuyers in each of the nation’s largest metros. As they continue to age, get married and start families, the homeownership rate among millennials will likely rise even further.”
For the full report, click here.
