The conversation about why younger Americans are not buying homes as readily as their parents did often gets framed as a matter of priorities, as if renting longer were a lifestyle preference rather than an economic reality. The data tells a different story. Across nearly every measurable dimension, the structural barriers to homeownership have grown significantly steeper for Millennials and Gen Z than they were for Baby Boomers and Gen X at the same ages. Here is what the numbers actually show.
Start with the most direct comparison. According to Redfin's analysis of 2025 data:
Those top-line figures are somewhat expected since older generations have had more time to accumulate equity and wealth. The more revealing comparison is what each generation looked like at the same age.
At age 28, 38.3% of Gen Zers were homeowners in 2025, compared to 42.5% of Gen Xers and 44.4% of Baby Boomers when they were 28. At age 36, 57.2% of Millennials owned their home in 2025 — compared to 61.2% of Gen Xers and 63.7% of Baby Boomers at that age. Apartment List's research puts it even more starkly: by age 30, 55% of the Silent Generation owned homes, compared to 48% of Baby Boomers, 42% of Gen Xers, and just 33% of Millennials.
This is not a new trend. It is a compounding one.
The most fundamental shift is the relationship between what homes cost and what people earn.
In 1985, the median U.S. home cost $82,800 while the median household earned $23,620 annually, a price-to-income ratio of roughly 3.5x. As of 2025, the median home costs $416,900, against a median household income of $83,150 — a ratio of 5x income. That shift may sound modest in the abstract, but at the scale of a home purchase, it represents tens of thousands of additional dollars that a buyer must either save, borrow, or go without.
From 1964 to 2022, home prices grew more than twice as fast as wages, according to U.S. Census data. The median home price went from $18,925 in 1964 to $432,950 in 2022 — more than 20 times higher. Median household income over the same period went from $6,569 to $74,580 — roughly 10 times higher. The math simply does not work the same way it once did.
Since 2020 alone, home prices have surged 53%, while rents have grown about 20%. Gen Z is coming of age in the middle of that run.
In spring 2024, the typical monthly payment for a new home hit a record $2,800, according to Redfin. To afford a median-priced home at today's mortgage rates, a household needs to earn approximately $106,731 annually — well above the U.S. median household income of $83,730.
Saving for a down payment is harder when home prices are outpacing income growth. Gen Z buyers averaged a 7.97% down payment in 2024, compared to 27.27% for late Baby Boomers — a reflection not of different values, but of different access to accumulated wealth. Many younger buyers are entering the market without equity from a previous home, without the benefit of decades of appreciation, and often carrying student loan debt that reduces their monthly savings capacity.
By age 25, nearly 30% of Gen Z is still living with their parents — a figure that reflects delayed independence driven by economic conditions, not preference.
As we have covered in our pieces on the YIMBY movement and zoning reform across the country, the most durable solutions to this gap are supply-side ones. When there are not enough homes to meet demand, prices rise, and they rise fastest in exactly the markets where younger buyers are trying to establish themselves.
More homes, built faster, in more places — including the infill, attainable, and workforce housing that younger buyers can actually afford — is the clearest path toward closing the generational gap. The data on where things stand is sobering. But it also makes the case for urgency, clearly and in plain numbers.
For informational purposes only. Not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy securities.
