Earlier this month, RentCafe reported their analysis of IPUMS data indicating Millennials’ landmark transition from majority renters to majority homeowners in the United States in 2022. According to RentCafe’s commentary, the average first-time Millennial homebuyer in 2022 was 34 years of age, two years older than Generation X and a year older than Baby Boomers were when they crossed the majority homeowner chasm. Given the longer period Millennials (and Generation Z) are spending at university (and therefore out of the workforce in early adulthood), the slight jump in average age of first-time homebuyers doesn’t seem too problematic, does it?

The 2021 Australian census offers some additional flavour to the education argument. In an October 2022 commentary, the Australian Bureau of Statistics defined Millennials of the 2021 census as 25-to-39-year-olds. The proportion of them with a bachelor degree or higher qualification is several times greater than Baby Boomers at the same age. You might think that a higher education among Millennials would be associated with comparatively higher income (and presumably higher rates of homeownership), but not if a bachelor’s degree is the “new normal” and no longer differentiates a job candidate. In the 2021 Australian census, 54.6 percent of Millennials were associated with home ownership. This contrasts with 62.1 percent of Generation X and 65.8 percent of Baby Boomers at the same age (in 2006 and 1991 respectively).

In the UK, the 2021-22 English Housing Survey indicated that 41.4 percent of households with a 25-to-34-year-old “reference person” were owner occupied. For the next age group (35-to-44-year-olds), we see a big jump in home ownership to 59.3 percent. Nevertheless, England’s 35-to-44-year-olds of today have a notably lower rate of owner occupation than those of two decades ago, when owner occupation for this age range was 74.3 percent (see chart below).

The rise of Generation Rent