Millennials fuel housing market recovery

Demographic accounts for more than half of new home-loan applications

Millennials account for more than half of new home-loan applications (iStock)
Millennials account for more than half of new home loan applications (iStock)

Millennials home buyers are shaping up to be a key force in the housing market’s rebound.

The group accounts for more than half of all new home loan applications, as it has since last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A cohort ranging in age from mid-20s to late 30s, millennials are often associated with renting. Fallout from the housing bubble bursting in 2007 and 2008, coupled with student debt, kept many from purchasing. Now, it appears that home ownership for the group was just delayed.

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“We anticipate as they turn 31 and 32, we’ll just see homebuying demand grow,” Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist at First American Financial Corp, told the Journal.

According to the National Association of Realtors, millennials accounted for 38 percent of all homebuyers in the year ending last July, an increase from 32 percent in 2015.

“What the industry’s been talking about for a decade is whether they’re going to follow their predecessor generations in terms of their desire to own homes,” Rick Arvielo, chief executive of mortgage lender New American Funding, told the Journal. It turns out, he said, “they have the same desires.” [WSJ] — Sylvia Varnham O’Regan