As many young adults begin to reach home buying age, rising home prices and lack of inventory may not be the only thing holding them back from owning a home.
In fact, many Millennials are choosing the urban lifestyle, and living in the core of the city as opposed to moving to the suburbs where affordability is much less of an issue. They prefer the urban lifestyle to paying lower mortgage payments in the suburbs.
For those that do want to buy a home, however, credit scores may be a stumbling block. A recent TransUnion survey found that about 33% of Millennials, aged 18 to 34, want to buy a home within the next year, however 43% of them have a subprime credit score, which could cause problems, according to this blog by Bob Sullivan for credit.com.
TransUnion’s study showed that 30% of this age group have credit scores between 300 and 600, according to the article. Experian agreed that the age group had lower-than-average credit scores, but gave them a higher average of 625. The national average is 667.
From the article:
FICO’s India McKinney said that 32% of FICO “scorable” consumers aged 18-34 have a score under 600 — and that doesn’t include the 10% of the population that has no credit score. That group would have real trouble getting a mortgage.
Low credit scores worry the house-shopping set, TransUnion found — 47% said so — but they are even more worried about building up their bank accounts for a down payment. Nearly 60% said getting a down payment was their primary concern.
But not everyone agrees that low credit scores, or large down payments, for that matter, are blocking young people from the housing market. Housing expert and loan officer Logan Mohtashami said he sees banks give low-score, low-down-payment buyers loans all the time.
“Low FICO score loans have been present this entire cycle,” he said. Buyers with scores as low as 620 can qualify, he said. And loans with down payments as low as 3.5% are available, too.
Whether or not their lower credit scores are keeping them from buying a home, improvement could be coming to the credit reporting industry.
Recently, Experian RentBureau teamed up with Yardi, a provider of real estate software solutions, to launch an interface that will allow renters to build credit history by having their rent payments reported.
They’re not the only ones changing the credit industry. The way consumers’ credit data is reported, recorded, and used by the nation’s credit reporting agencies could be about to dramatically change, if a newly introduced bill makes its way through Congress.
