Cities Attracting the Most Young Homebuyers

Only 36.4% of Americans under the age of 35 own the home they live in, according to SmartAsset. But there are metros where homeownership is more accessible for young adults, so SmartAsset analyzed data to identify those cities with the most young adult homeowners and cities where the number has grown over the years. Across the 200 cities analyzed, there has been a 3.71% decrease in young adults owning homes over the last decade. The top city for young homeowners is Midland, TX, which had a 17.11% increase over 10 years for the homeownership rate for people younger than 35.

Key Findings
Young homeownership has decreased overall since 2009. While there are plenty of cities where homeownership among younger residents has increased, over the past decade the under-35 homeownership rate decreased by 3.71%, on average, across the 200 cities we analyzed.

Under-35 homeownership lags compared to that of older generations, particularly in large cities. Though some two-thirds of all Americans owned their homes in 2019, just one-fourth (26.15%) of residents younger than 35 did in the 200 cities we analyzed. Homeownership rates are particularly low for the under-35 set in America’s largest cities: of the 10 with the highest populations, nine are in the bottom half of the study for 2019 homeownership rate (only Phoenix cracks the top half at No. 67), and all 10 had decreasing homeownership rates from 2009 to 2019, with six out of 10 — Phoenix, San Jose, Philadelphia, Dallas, Houston, Chicago — ranking in the bottom half of the study for change in homeownership rate from 2009 to 2019.

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