What’s Keeping Millennials From Buying a House?

Eight in 10 millennials want to buy a home, but lack of affordability is one of the key reasons that’s delaying their decision to become a homeowner according to the latest Modern Homebuyer Survey released by ValueInsured on Thursday.

The report stated that last year, as the economy improved and millennials continued to age, earn more, and start families, the homeownership rate for millennials rebounded to 35.3 percent. However, that was still 10 percentage points lower than a decade prior.

Concerns such as job stability and the need for flexibility were also holding millennials back from owning a home, the survey found.

The down payment—rather than the monthly mortgage—was one of the top reasons cited by millennials for not buying a home. Sixty-four percent of the survey respondents who said they wished to buy a home also said they lacked confidence that they could afford the down payment.

Many millennials are still early in their careers, and their average job tenure is only 2.8 years. The ValueInsured report notes that 47 percent of the respondents said they could not commitment to owning a home as they worried that their job future was uncertain. Thirty percent said they thought they would move for their job sometime soon, and they would like to wait and see where their next move took them before settling on a home.

The survey noted that flexibility is another reason millennials are shying away from buying homes, with 36 percent of the respondents saying that they wished to buy in the near future but wanted to keep their options open. Approximately 21 percent respondents said they still enjoyed the flexibility of renting. The report also found that only 11 percent who wished to buy a home in the near future cited low or free rent as a reason for not pulling the trigger to buy a home.

You can read the full ValueInsured report by clicking here.