Are Millennials interested in settling down into homeownership? This question is subject to heavy debate in the housing industry. In the first part of our “Attracting Millennials” series, “Attracting Millennials into the Housing Ecosystem,” we discussed how we can encourage this young and thriving generational segment as leaders in the housing ecosystem. This second installment will explore how to incite their interest as homebuyers by addressing the perceived and real obstacles they face.

Myth: Millennials Are Not Buying Homes

NAWRB’s article “Millennials and the Homeownership Puzzle” explored whether this generation’s desire for homeownership has mitigated because they are delaying “independent living, marriage and parenthood much later than older generations did.” These three milestones, it continues, “all contribute to homeownership and the desire to own a home.”

Millennial women, especially, are prioritizing their education and careers over marriage and buying a home of their own. Many of them are college students still living at home. Of women living with their families, 56.1 percent are between the ages of 18 and 24. Moreover, women are marrying into their late twenties and older. In 1940, women on average married at 21.5 years of age; today, the average age has increased to 27.
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