Looking at Ways to Increase Millennial Homeownership
The homeownership rate for millennials (ages 25-34) was 37 percent in 2015, or nearly 8 percentage points lower than that of the two previous generations (Gen X and Baby boomers) at the same age. In a new paper, the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., quantifies the factors that impact Millennials’ lower homeownership rate and explores ways to increase Millennial homeownership opportunities.
The paper, Millennial Homeownership, Why Is It So Low, and How Can We Increase It?, authored by Jung Hyun Choi, Jun Zhu, Laurie Goodman, Bhargavi Ganesh and Sarah Strochak, identifies several factors that have kept Millennial homeownership at lower rates than previous cohorts:
–Delayed marriage: being married increases the probability of owning a home by 18 percentage points, after accounting for other factors such as age, income, race/ethnicity and education. If the marriage rate in 2015 had been the same as it was in 1990, the millennial homeownership rate would be about 5 percentage points higher.
–Greater racial diversity: because non-Hispanic white households have higher homeownership rates than all other racial groups, the increasing diversity of millennials contributes to the lower homeownership rate as well. If the racial composition in 2015 had been the same as it was in 1990, the millennial homeownership rate would be 2.6 percentage points higher.
–Increased education debt: a 1 percent increase in education loan debt decreases the likelihood of owning a home by 0.15 percentage points.
–Increased rents: a 1 percent increase in a household’s rent-to-income ratio decreases the likelihood of homeownership by 0.07 percentage points.
–Delayed child-bearing: for those who are married, having a child increases the probability of owning a home 6.2 percentage points, after accounting for other factors such as age, income, race/ethnicity and education.
–Parental wealth and homeownership status: a child’s likelihood of being a homeowner increases by 9 percentage points if their parents are owners and a 1 percent increase in parental wealth increases a child’s likelihood of being a homeowner by .016 percentage points.
–Location choice: the preference of educated millennials to move to more expensive urban centers has contributed to their lower homeownership rate.
The paper identified two areas of great concern: education and wealth disparities. “Less educated young adults are falling further behind in homeownership,” the authors said. “For millennials, the gap in homeownership rates between the more educated and less-educated population has grown significantly compared to previous generations. The difference in the homeownership rate between the two groups increased from 3.3 to 9.7 percentage points between 1990 and 2015. Less educated millennials could be falling behind in homeownership because of their unstable incomes and rising rents.”
Left unchecked, the authors said, current trends will result in even greater wealth disparities among white, black and Hispanic millennials. “While millennials aged 18-34 in all race and ethnic groups have experienced a drop in homeownership since 2005, the black homeownership rate has been continuously lower than all groups and has dropped further than the other groups since 2000,” they said. “As minorities are less likely to be homeowners and have less wealth, intergenerational transfer of homeownership provides an additional explanation for the persistent disparities in homeownership across race and ethnic groups.”
The paper offers four recommendations/policies that could increase millennials’ access to homeownership amid these concerns:
–Enhance the financial knowledge of young adults about homeownership by providing financial education in high school that includes information about homeownership and downpayment assistance programs; and providing accessible and engaging online training for homebuyers, including information about downpayment assistance programs;
–Use technology to simplify the mortgage process be streamlining and increasing the efficiency of the mortgage process;
–Expand credit assessment criteria by including rental, telecom and utility payment history when evaluating millennials’ creditworthiness and fully capture income in the underwriting process; and
–Ease land-use restrictions changing land-use and zoning regulations to allow for more construction, particularly in areas with tight housing supply.
The paper is available at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/millennial-homeownership/view/full_report.
