WSJ: RESI – Millennials Are Supercharging the Housing Market

The Wall Street Journal came out with an feature, Millennials Are Supercharging the Housing Market, which focuses on “The generation that supposedly didn’t want to buy things now accounts for over half of all home-purchase loan applications; economists expect them to bolster demand for years.”

Recently, Barron’s highlighted how “Millennials need a place to live—and it’s not only home builders who stand to benefit. Shares of Invitation Homes, which rents houses in residential hotspots, look like a winner […]Factors like low mortgage rates, remote work, and an intensified focus on house hunting have contributed to the housing market’s pandemic-era boom in demand, while a limited supply of homes for sale created additional competition.”

The WSJ article states:

For years, conventional wisdom held that millennials, born from 1981 to 1996, would become the generation that largely spurned homeownership. Instead, since 2019, when they surpassed the baby boomers to become the largest living adult generation in the U.S., they have reached a housing milestone, accounting for more than half of all home-purchase loan applications last year.

The generation’s growing appetite for homeownership is a major reason why many economists forecast home-buying demand is likely to remain strong for years to come.