Home buying = FML for millennials

The National Assoc. of Realtors just reported the latest stats on home buying - the #1 marker Americans over decades have attributed to first “feeling like an adult.” Marketers should be paying attention to the broader implication these new stats have on consumer mindsets, particularly for millennials.

• A record-low 24% of home purchases were made by first-time home buyers in the year July 2023 - June 2024. The year prior, first-timers made up 32% of the home-buying market.

• The average age of a first-time home buyer was 38, up from 36 last year and 33 years old in 2021. The age of home buyers overall increased as well, from 49 last year to a record high 56 years old.

• Commensurately, median household income of first-time home buyers reached $97,000, up from $95,000 last year and $71,000 two years ago.

Millennials are of prime-time home buying age - historically speaking - aged 28-43 years old today. But the milestone achievement of buying a home won’t be met for many, the implications of this being vast, from wealth-building and consumption habits to the psyche of the largest population in the country being that of feeling screwed. While not new- news, the NAR study suggests things are only getting worse.

This article from Huff Post is a great account from one millennial capturing the current state-of-mind of the generation that fittingly coined the term “FML.” TLDR:

“This is why the touchstone experience of millennials, the thing that truly defines us, is not helicopter parenting or unpaid internships or Pokémon Go. It is uncertainty.”

I wonder what uncertainty means for presidential elections.