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For Millennials, Buying a Home is Less Affordable, but Renting is Cheaper than it Was for Past Generations
September 26, 2019
Home prices are rising faster than incomes, meaning that buying a house is increasingly unaffordable for young people. A new report from HireAHelper analyzed U.S. census data and looked at how much people in their 20’s need to save for a down payment. On average, millennials today take about 6.4 years’ worth of savings to afford a down payment. Both GenXers and Baby Boomers only needed 5.6 years of savings, meaning that millennial buyers need to save about 15 percent more than previous generations.
However, millennials are actually paying less rent than previous generations. Millennials spend on average 37.5 percent of their monthly incomes on rent. This is slightly less than the 35.9 percent that GenXers spent when they were young, and significantly less than the 38.1 percent that Boomers had to pay.
