Homeownership crawls back up from 50-year low
“I think this is good news in light of the fact that millennials now make up the largest pool of potential new households. Though many are still living with their parents, they eventually will move out,” noted Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at Trulia.
“First, they will rent, and as they settle down, then they will buy. While we can’t know for sure if they will own at rates of older generations, our survey work at Trulia shows 80 percent of millennials want to own a home — the highest share of any cohort and the highest in the seven years we’ve run the survey.”
Flying in the face of homeownership continues to be the severe lack of homes for sale, and the situation is only getting worse. The number of for-sale listings usually drops in the slower fall and winter months, but in October it showed a sharper decline than usual, according to Realtor.com. Supply is especially low for cheaper, entry-level homes, but total supply is lower than it was one year ago.
“The number of homes for sale declined more in October than at any other point this summer, leaving us with 11 percent fewer active listings than a year earlier and the largest monthly inventory drop since July 2015,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Realtor.com.