Fewer Millennials Confident Buying a Home Is a Good Investment

A new homebuyer survey finds that a record low share of Millennials think buying a home is a good investment today, down 29 percent from 2016.

The ValueInsured Modern Homebuyer Survey shows that 48 percent of this generation's respondents think buying a home is a good investment, compared to 77 percent two years ago. The vast majority of respondents, 85 percent, say they believe a down payment to cost more than half of the value of their overall personal assets, CNBC reports. Almost 33 percent of the Millennial respondents say they would have to move to a different housing market to be able to afford a home, and 25 percent say they have to put off starting a family if they were going to buy a home.

In July, the median cost of homes in the U.S. was $269,600, up 4 percent from a year ago. New home sales, meanwhile, fell to a nine-month low. Because of high prices and limited supply, many prospective homeowners are struggling to find homes they like for prices they're willing to, or able to, pay. "Conventional wisdom assumed millennials were buying homes later because they chose to get married and have children later," said Joe Melendez, CEO and founder of ValueInsured. "New research now suggests homeownership may be the cause, not the effect, of delayed family formation."

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