Don’t blame millennials. Blame the middle-aged!
There’s a common refrain about the sluggish housing market these days that goes something like: “Those darned young folks just aren’t buying houses like they used to.”
Well, that diagnosis isn’t quite right, according to a new study from Trulia, the online real estate firm.
Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko says if you look at the data, “18-to-34-year-olds today look about as likely to own a home as 18-to-34-year-olds did 20 years ago, once we adjust for the big changes in demographics.”
Kolko points to demographic changes like the fact that today’s young adults are much less likely to be married or have kids than their counterparts 20 years ago. When you look at the young adults today who still are married with kids, he says they are buying homes at the same rates as they did in 1997.
But there is a generation where homeownership really has declined since the rise and fall of the real estate market in the 2000s, even when you adjust for demographics.
“The 35-to-54-year-old group was more affected both by the housing bubble and by the foreclosure crisis,” Kolko says.
Graphics from Trulia, depicting adjusted homeownership rates for 18-to-34 year olds and 35-to-54 year olds compared to a demographic baseline. The demographic baseline is a depiction of we’d expect to happen with those demographic if the recession, or any other behavioral changes, didn’t occur. (Graphics courtesy of Trulia)
Of course, even that generation might not be gone from the housing market forever. Amy Gerrish, 36, lost her home outside of Phoenix, Ariz. to foreclosure in the early days of the real estate crash, and then reluctantly became a renter.
She knew it would take at least three years after the foreclosure to be considered for a home loan again.
“As soon as that date started coming up, we started looking,” she says.
She now is a homeowner once more.
We reached out to listeners on Twitter to ask about their experience with the housing market. Here are some of the responses:
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