Mortgage

Millennial housing problems hit MBA’s Stevens close to home

Even those who can buy won’t buy

Top housing expert and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association David Stevens doesn’t have to look too far to see the impact of the financial crisis on millennials, with his own daughter Sara Stevens choosing to forgo buying a home right now. Per Businessweek:

Sara Stevens, 27, knows interest rates are low, rents are high and owning a home can build wealth. She also had a front-row seat to the worst real-estate slump since the Great Depression.

“The world has changed,” she said.

“We have a younger generation that has sat on the front lines of this housing recession,” said Stevens, 57. “They’re clearly being more thoughtful about it and they’re clearly deferring that decision.”

And it is not only because of student loans, an iffy job market and tight credit, even millennials who can buy are unsure, the article explained.

But this could slowly start to change as the fed hopes that the housing market recovery would accelerate once employment growth revived and younger adults were able to get jobs.

Looking at historical trends, the share of adults living with their parents drops sharply after age 24 and continues to fall to 6% by the mid- to late 30s.

“Regardless of the economic setbacks they may have experienced, today’s 20–29 year olds are still likely to follow the same pattern,” a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University said.

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