Millennials are once again the largest group of homebuyers in the country. In some metro areas, they are buying homes at rates up to 13 times higher than other areas.
A report released this week by personal finance website SmartAsset analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) across the 40 largest U.S. metro areas to determine the top markets for millennial homebuyers.
SmartAsset analyzed 2022 HMDA data to find mortgages originated for people between the ages of 25 and 44. It then compared these numbers to the size of the local millennial population to rank metros by the share of millennials who purchased homes that year. Property values and median incomes for new millennial homeowners were also considered.
The North Carolina capital of Raleigh led the way as 6.5% of millennials in the Raleigh-Cary metro area became homeowners in 2022. The median household income for these buyers was $123,000. The median purchase price for these homes was $445,000, with a median mortgage rate of 4.4%.
The 12 metros at the the top of the list each saw at least 5% of millennial residents purchase a home. These included Nashville, Denver, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Virginia Beach, Cincinnati, Austin, Tampa and Milwaukee.
Notably, the median income for new homeowners in the 40 largest metro areas was $109,000 in 2022. That compared to a median income of $74,580 for all U.S. households, according to census data.
SmartAsset determined that San Francisco was the most difficult of the country’s largest metro areas for aspiring millennial buyers. Less than 1% of millennials in the Bay Area bought a home in 2022, due in part to affordability issues. The median home price across San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley that year was $1.59 million and the median loan amount was $956,000.
Measured by the sheer number of buyers, Atlanta was No. 1 with more than 83,000 millennial-driven purchases in 2022. That was more than double the median of 33,000 buyers across the 40 largest metros. Atlanta was 15th when considering the percent of millennials who bought, with a 4.7% share.
Although millennials are the largest homebuyer cohort by generation, they have faced plenty of hurdles in achieving that status.
Last month, Fortune published a story that articulated a “showdown” between millennials who wish to enter the housing market and baby boomers who wish to age in place. This is contributing to low levels of for-sale inventory, which is exacerbated by the lock-in effect created by homeowners wanting to keep their low-rate loan.
In January 2024, a Redfin analysis showed that empty-nester baby boomers owned 28% of the nation’s largest homes (three bedrooms or more) in 2022, while millennials owned only 14%. That ran counter to the millennial and boomer shares of the U.S. population, which stood at a respective 28% and 27%.
