You’ve heard the stereotypes. Millennials are whiny, entitled, lazy, unemployed, and, now, likely to be future suburban dwellers.
A new survey released Wednesday by the National Association of Home Builders and first reported by the Wall Street Journal found that most eventually want to live in single-family homes outside of the urban center, even if right now they live in the city.
“While you are more likely to attract this generation than other generations to buy a condo or a house downtown, that is a relative term,” Rose Quint, the association’s assistant vice president of survey research, told WSJ. “The majority of them will still want to buy the house out there in the suburbs.”
The survey found that 66 percent wanted to live in the suburbs, 24 percent want to live in rural areas and 10 percent want to live in a city center. The main reason their respondents gave for moving away from the city was “having more space.” The study showed that 81 percent wanted three or more bedrooms in their home.
The survey was based on responses from 1,506 people born since 1977, a wider age range than just millennials although WSJ noted that most respondents were younger. But the results could also be skewed because they only included people who had bought a home within the past three years or intended to do so in the next three years.
But despite this future desire for large suburban homes, the financial resources for the homes might not be there.
Millennials are still struggling to recover from the recession. Unemployment levels for this age group are still high and student loan debt will be a significant barrier to overcome, according to Stockton Williams, executive director of the Terwilliger Center for Housing at the Urban Land Institute.
“There may be a strong interest, but there might also be a recognition that, at least for some, the opportunity to own a home might have to wait,” he said.
