Millennials Are a Driving Force for the Market's Rebound

If generational home buying were a race, Millennials would be stealing first place right now from Baby Boomers. As a generation once viewed as reluctant to buy, Millennials’ influence is growing and helping the housing market’s rebound, according to Realtor.com. Early last year, Millennials became the first group to account for more than half of all new home loans. From 2015 to 2019, the amount of Millennial homebuyers jumped by 32%. And it helps that the group is now the largest living adult generation in the US.

“We anticipate as they turn 31 and 32, we’ll just see homebuying demand grow,” said Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist at First American Financial Corp. Millennials could be responsible for at least 15 million home sales in the next decade, the firm said.

Rising millennial homeownership challenges years of speculation after the 2007-09 recession that millennials would be stuck renting perpetually, hampered by student-loan debt and wary of the housing market after the foreclosure crisis.

That raised questions about how millennials would build nest eggs, because homeownership has commonly been viewed as a pillar of wealth creation. Now, brokers and economists say millennials’ homebuying interest was simply delayed. Older millennials are marrying and having children later in life than previous generations, after finishing their education and building up savings.

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