A new poll suggests a huge swath of the biggest generation in America right now see huge barriers to achieving homeownership for themselves.
Brokerage and listings portal Redfin surveyed 5,079 U.S. residents between May and June, including 1,973 Millennials (aged 27 to 42) and 1,340 members of Generation Z (aged 18 to 26) about a range of real estate topics.
While just over 10 percent of Millennials polled said they are not interested in owning a home, 46 percent of Millennials and 33 percent of Gen Zers said their inability to save for a down payment is standing in their way of buying a home even though 35 percent of Millennials and 40 percent of Gen Zers surveyed said they are working a second job to help generate that money and separate Redfin research says 38 percent of homebuyers under 30 this spring used family money for their down payments.
Even more Millennial respondents – just shy of half – said available homes are too expensive and around 37% said mortgage rates are too high. Gen Z respondents largely mirrored those responses.
Only a relatively small number of Millennial (21 percent) and Gen Z (16 percent) poll respondents said they needed to pay off student loans before buying a house, however at the time the poll was taken the federal government had paused mandatory payments and interest accumulation on federal loans. Both are resuming this fall.
While 52 percent of American Millennials and 26 percent of Gen Zers own their own homes according to HMDA data, compared to three-quarters of Gen Xers or Baby Boomers, the Redfin poll paints a depressing picture of non-homeowning Millennials’ perceptions about their ability to catch up with their peers: 18 percent of Millennial respondents in Redfin’s poll said they don’t believe they’ll ever own a home.
“The worsening housing affordability crisis has an outsized impact on Gen Zers and millennials because they’re much less likely to own a home than older generations,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement. “That means many young Americans don’t benefit from rising home prices by gaining equity. Instead, these would-be first-time homebuyers bear the burden of high prices, high down payments and high monthly mortgage payments, without profits from a previous home to offset the cost. Many young people don’t have a choice between renting and buying. They’re renting their home because even though rent payments have increased, too, it’s still more affordable than buying in much of the country – and renters don’t need a down payment.”
In Massachusetts, first-time homebuyers have a range of down payment assistance options, including select loans from MassHousing, the STASH program from the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership’s ONE and ONE+Boston mortgage products. In addition some mortgage lenders, like Rocket Mortgage, have begun to offer down payment assistance.