You often hear people say that millennials are not buying homes, and that it’s having a drastic impact on the economy. At that same age, younger generations were buying homes and starting families. Millennials have far too much student debt. They spend their money on other things besides homes.
Is this line of thinking true? While there are arguments on both sides, it should be noted that the median age at which someone bought their first house in 1970 was 30.6 years old. In 2015, that age had only gone up to 31.
That’s virtually no change, and it takes into account decades of real estate in the United States. It means that people were not buying homes any earlier than they are now.
On top of that, only one third of millennials are actually 31 years old or older. The other 66 percent are still under 31, and a full 22 percent of them are younger than 25.
This myth may continue to be perpetuated because millennials really do have more student debt than previous generations. They face concerns about buying power. However, most of them still haven’t put off buying homes any longer than previous generations simply because they haven’ reached that point in their lives yet. If there is still an issue a decade from now, that will be telling, but it’s too early to know yet.
Those who are thinking about purchasing a home need to make sure they know all of the legal steps they should take and exactly how this process works. It can seem a bit complicated when you’ve never been through it before.