Report: Just 17% of Gen Z Americans Own Homes

Gen Z Americans are reshaping the housing market, with a sixfold surge in young renters in the last five years.

As Alexandra Both explains in a piece for RentCafe, the number of Gen Z renters grew from 700,000 to 4.4 million. Just 17 percent of Gen Zers own a home, lagging behind their older Millennial counterparts, more than half of whom are homeowners.

The growth in young population isn’t just happening in coastal cities. Birmingham, Alabama now leads the nation in young renter growth, followed by Raleigh, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee. “California metro areas have the highest concentrations of Gen Z renters, led by Silicon Valley’s San Jose. Here, close to 95% of all Gen Zers rent. Not far down the list we have San Francisco (#4), San Diego (#7), Los Angeles (#8) and Sacramento, CA (#17), where soaring home prices make renting more appealing for career-driven digital natives.”

Homeownership remains out of reach for much of the Gen Z cohort. Ogden, Utah has the highest percentage of Gen Z homeowners at 41 percent. “Further down the list are mid-sized metro areas in the South and Midwest, where affordability, job opportunities and strong income growth coexist harmoniously.”