Millennial homebuyers: younger buyers partial to home ownership, home-buyer education, online resources.

• Author: Barbour, Tracy
• Position: FINANCIAL SERVICES

National research and Alaska's mortgage industry experts reveal interesting insights about the practices of millennial homebuyers. Millennials--people born between 1982 and 2000--have a strong penchant for home ownership and educating themselves about the home-buying process. They're also partial to using online resources, yet value having a personal touch when pursuing a home loan.

But while many millennials are interested in going from renting to owning, fewer of them are making the transition. The percentage of home owners between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five has been sloping downward nationally for more than ten years, according research firm Abodo. As part of its study of home-buying trends in the United States, Abodo found that 39.5 percent of young adults were home owners in 2005 while only 32.1 percent were in 2015. (Abodo's analysis used data from the US Census Bureau 2015 American Community Survey and focused on the one hundred largest metropolitan statistical areas by population.)

Why the slowdown in home buying for the younger generation? The prevalence of college attendance, mounting student loan debt, and an increasingly tight housing market are slowly pushing back the age of first-time homebuyers, according to Abodo. Millennials--also called Generation Y--now account for just 7.5 percent of the value of all US homes, despite being the largest generation of adults.

A similar home ownership trend was revealed by the "2017 State of the Nation's Housing" report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The report indicates that the number of home owners over age fifty-five jumped by 13 percentage points to 54 percent between 2001 and 2015. But over the same period, the share of home owners under age thirty-five shrank by 5 percentage points to about 33 percent.

Home Ownership Still the American Dream

Home ownership still represents the American dream to the millennial generation. At least, that's one of the findings of the "2016 How America Views Homeownership" survey by Wells Fargo. It affirms that there is a strong appetite for home ownership, particularly among millennials and diverse groups. "They see home ownership as something to be proud of, something that is a dream come true," says Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Alaska Area Manager Brenda Miernyk.

The Wells Fargo survey is the result of three years of consumer research and includes 3,400 adults across the nation. While the survey doesn't cover Alaska specifically, it reveals viewpoints that are likely similar to what younger homebuyers in Alaska are feeling, says Anchorage-based Miernyk.

In addition to having positive feelings about home ownership, most of the millennials surveyed say they plan on purchasing a house soon. In fact, 58 percent of Wells Fargo's survey respondents said they would be buying a home in the next few years.

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