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CityLab Daily: What Stands Between Millennials and Homeownership

Also: Security theater at the National Zoo, and a “carnival of resistance” awaits Trump in Britain.
Seth Wenig/AP

Millennium outcomes: It’s easy to speculate about why Millennials aren’t buying homes. In 2015, about 37 percent of Millennials owned a house—that’s about eight percentage points lower than Gen X-ers and Baby Boomers when they were the same age. While there’s no shortage of theories about why this is happening, it’s more difficult to quantify potential causes. But a new report by the Urban Institute actually puts some numbers behind the factors that make homeownership less likely for this generation.

People born between 1981 and 1997 are notably putting off some big life moves that affect when they buy a home. For example, if marriage rates were the same as in 1990, homeownership would be 5 percentage points higher, the study suggests. Student debt weighs heavily, too, with highly educated Millennials falling 5 points lower than the two previous generations on homeownership. Combine that with higher rents and lingering racial disparities and you get a fuller picture of what’s going on.