RentCafe: Millionaires Increasingly Likely to Rent

(Image courtesy of RentCafe; Breakout image courtesy of Paul H/pexels.com)

RentCafe, Santa Barbara, Calif., found that the number of millionaire renters has tripled since 2019.

Millionaire renters (defined as those in the $1 million-plus income category) grew 204% from 2019 to 2023, compared with millionaire homeowners, up 169%. That’s one in 11 millionaires as a renter, compared with one in 13 in 2019.

RentCafe pointed to a number of factors influencing the decision of high-income individuals to rent over buy–including the expansion of the tech sector, continued remote work and a preference for turnkey living solutions.

Broken down by generation, millionaire millennials are more likely to rent, while Gen Xers are more likely to buy. Forty-six percent of millionaire renters are millennials, while 43% of millionaire owners are Gen X.

And, there are new places attracting millionaire renters. The largest growth in wealthy renters can be seen in Houston, which had 25 as many millionaire renter households in 2023 as it did in 2019.

Next is Dallas (12 times more), Miami (11 times more), Atlanta (10 times more) and Virginia Beach, Va., (6 times more).

There are also totally new millionaire renter hubs–spots that had no millionaire renter households in 2019 and now have a fair number.

The top of that list is the Charleston, S.C., area, followed by Oxnard, Calif., Jacksonville, Fla., Orlando, Fla., and Santa Rosa, Calif.

However, the most millionaire renter households overall are still in largely predictable hotspots–namely New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Calif., and Boston.