Housing crash still weighs heavy on Gen X homeowners: Zillow report

The housing market collapse still weighs heaviest on Generation X mortgaged homeowners, according to a newly released Zillow equity report.

The report reveals that both in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area and on national level, Gen X homeowners and their millennial counterparts have about the same amount of equity in their homes, even though millennials have had considerably less time to accumulate that equity. The report defines Gen X as people currently between the ages of 35 to 50 and millennials as anyone less than 35 years of age.

In Miami and Fort Lauderdale, about 81.1 percent of Gen X homeowners have a mortgage and still owe 63.6 percent of the their home’s value. By comparison, 76.3 percent of local millennials have a mortgage and owe about 66.3 of their home’s value. The Zillow analysis points to the Gen X lag as a residual outcome of the 2008 housing market crash. Overall, 9.9 percent of Miami and Fort Lauderdale homeowners of all ages with a mortgage have negative equity in their homes, according to the report.

“Roughly half of American wealth is held in home equity,” Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell said in a press release. “Paying off the home mortgage is a key step toward retirement for most Americans, and it’s clear from these results that Generation X is further from that goal than older generations because of the Great Recession.”

Despite generational differences, Miami homeowners with mortgages are still doing better compared to the national average. The loan-to-value ratio of mortgaged homeowners on the national level was 70.1 percent for Gen X and 76.2 percent for millennials. The Zillow report drew data from 35 major metropolitan areas around the United States.

The national median homeowner, without age distinction, has $78,683 in home equity and owes about 62.2 percent of their home’s current value, the report shows. Among homeowners of all ages, 10.4 percent have negative equity, the report shows.