2025
Homeownership is declining among young adults
You cannot think of the American Dream without homeownership coming to mind. But for the rising generation, homeownership is becoming out of reach. Since 1970, homeownership rates among young adults have declined about 40%, from half of young adults owning the home they live in, to less than a third in 2023. This comes at the same time as a growing housing affordability crisis in America. While just 1% of housing markets were seriously unaffordable in 1969 (where the median home was worth ten times or more a young adult’s median annual income), now 37% of housing markets are. And it’s not just big city metros that are pricing out America’s youth. In 1969, the nationwide median price for a home was about five years of income for the typical young adult. Today, it’s nearly nine years of income. Lyman Stone prescribes the antidote: build more family-friendly homes.
