Millennials are buying up housing, but they’re avoiding larger, more expensive cities on the coast in the process.
Cities in the Midwest, South, and West have attracted millennials to their housing market, according to Bloomberg.
Much ado has been said about student-loan debt hampering millennials, but that narrative doesn’t hold as much as is assumed.
In Des Moines, Provo, Baton Rouge, and Pittsburgh, for instance, millennials are the majority of first-time home buyers.
Low median home prices help. In Des Moines, a house can be purchased for $218,000. In Pittsburgh, it’s about $150,000.
It makes sense that, in cheaper housing markets, more millennials will buy instead of rent. Millennials aren’t deserting coastal cities, as a recent Census Bureau report noted, but a significant number have preferred smaller cities with affordable housing.
The appeal of the suburbs might play a role as well. Especially for millennials starting a family, a suburb near a city with a low cost of living can be a powerful draw.
Media focus tends to revolve around New York City, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, among others. That makes sense, as most large media outlets are based in those cities. That leads to a certain myopia, however. A significant number of millennials aren’t renting in high-priced cities — they’re buying houses away from the coasts.
