A new report from Zillow reveals that more Millennials live with their mothers now than at any other time in the last decade.
In 2005, 13.5% of adults age 24 to 36 lived with their moms. That number now is up around 25% now, which means that about 12 million Millennials reside in casa de madre. According to the report, rising rents and slow income growth are keeping the kiddos in mom’s basement.
Of all recent college graduates, 28% of them live with their parents. Back in 2005 this was true of only 19% of recent graduates. Furthermore, 12% of the Millennials living with mom are unemployed.
"As rents outpaced incomes over the past decade, young people turned to their families in large numbers to ease the housing cost crunch," Zillow Senior Economist Aaron Terrazas said in a statement.
"But even as the labor market has improved, the family safety net has yet to unwind," Terrazas added. "Living with parents may allow young adults to pursue work or a passion that may not be especially lucrative, or save enough money for first and last month's rent or a down payment on a home of their own.”
Already high U.S. rents continue to rise due to high occupancies and strong demand. Right now, the median rent in the U.S. is $1,447, a 3% increase over last year. The concentration of Millennials living at home is particularly acute in cities with the highest rents such as Miami, New York and Los Angeles, all of which have more than 30% of Millennials living with their parents.
Rents in these cities, and cities like them, typically consume 35% or more of the median income. This phenomenon is not expected to lose steam anytime soon, as the report notes that rents are expected to increase by another 2% by the end of the year and wages continue to slip (the average college graduate makes 2.4% less than they did in 2005).
