This Buzzy Southern State Is Shattering Homebuying Expectations
It’s no secret that buying a home feels like an “adulting” milestone that’s out of reach for many young adults. While many millennials may be putting their dreams of being a homeowner on pause (or getting rid of them entirely) due to the cost of homeownership, there’s one surprising housing market where they’re apparently dominating — or at least doing better than usual. According to a new study, millennials in this one Southern metropolitan area are buying homes at a superfast rate.
A new survey from SmartAsset reveals that millennials — those born between 1981 and 1996 — had a 6.5% increase in homeownership in the Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina, metro area in just the last year overall.
Meanwhile, another North Carolina/South Carolina district, the Charlotte metropolitan area, also saw significant growth, coming in fourth with a 5.8% rate increase in the number of millennials buying up homes. The study found that the average income of these new millennial homeowners in the Raleigh-Cary area was $123,000, while the average for those in the Charlotte area was $110,000.
When conducting their research, SmartAsset used April 2024 findings from the National Association of Realtors that millennials are actually leading the charge and buying homes at a faster rate overall compared with their baby boomer and Gen Z counterparts. Using this information, the financial technology company ranked the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the United States based on how many millennials bought homes in these districts in 2022 and also examined the median income of these new buyers, as well as subject property values.
After Raleigh-Cary, the Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin area in Tennessee was the area where millennials are buying homes at the fastest rates. The study found that there was a 6% increase in local people aged 25 to 44 who bought properties, and the median income there for homeowners was $110,000.
The Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area in Colorado came in third with a 5.9% increase and a $131,000 median income, followed of course by the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Indiana, area, which came in fifth with a 5.6% increase and $92,000 average income.
While these findings are from local millennials who are buying homes within their state, other recent studies have found that people are simply flocking to the Carolinas. Travel + Leisure readers recently named Charleston the best city in the U.S. overall for the 12th year in a row, and a June report from ConsumerAffairs.com found that North Carolina was the state that people most wanted to move to, followed closely by South Carolina. This new study is giving just another reason for wannabe homebuyers to consider moving to one of these states.
You can read the full SmartAsset study here.