If you’re paying high rent for a tiny flat in a big city, it might be hard to believe – but the first millennials are buying houses, and not where you might think.
We’re heading to the suburbs in search of affordable properties, to escape the high rents charged in cities.
The San Diego Tribune cites studies from Harvard and Zillow, saying “the majority of millennials want to live in the suburbs, have already started buying outside urban areas, and base their homebuying decisions mainly on affordability.”
Major cities are starting to feel the effects of the millennial shift toward the ‘burbs.
“Apartment rents in San Francisco, Washington, Denver, Miami and New York are moderating or even declining from a year ago, according to Zillow,” the New York Times reports. (If my landlord is reading this… hint, hint.)
Just as the housing market started to catch up to the influx of young adults looking for apartments, those same young adults got a little older and are now moving out of the cities.
Only 10 percent of millennials own a home, but of those who do, about half own property in suburbs, compared to one-third who own within city limits. Data is extremely limited about young adults who own property in urban areas, because prices are so high that only very few can afford to do so before their 35th birthday.
We’re chasing the American dream beyond city limits. This could upend the political map by turning the suburbs blue. Young people vote overwhelmingly for Democrats – but will that still hold true when we’re a little older, with mortgage payments to make?
Early indicators show young adults still lean left, even in the suburbs. The suburbs around Minneapolis and St. Paul are turning blue, and a similar phenomenon is occurring around Chicago and Denver. Some of the counties surrounding Atlanta, which were previously reliably red, went for Hillary Clinton in November – due mainly to “demographic changes” bringing in a new, diverse wave of suburbanites.
This makes our generation different from Gen-X and Baby Boomer homeowners. Back in 2015, when the millennial home ownership wave was still forming, the Urban Institute found homeowners are 26 percent more likely to vote Republican than Democrat. So far, however, millennials are changing the politics of the suburbs more than the politics of the suburbs are changing millennials.
Our suburbs won’t look like the bedroom communities of past decades. Today’s young adults are looking for amenities like restaurants, nightlife, and parks – even if all those things are done on a smaller scale, in a smaller town. Of all living adult generations, millennials have the highest rate of preference for taking public transportation (44 percent) and least interested in driving (71 percent), though our preference for driving over buses or trains is still significant.
Young first-time home buyers are making the suburbs more like cities in how these places operate, what these places offer, and how these places vote.
