Extra time to save up for a down payment is an important benefit as the home affordability crisis worsens. The median price of a single-family home rose by nearly $100,000 from 2020 to 2022.

According to the Pew Research Institute, the share of Generation Z members (ages 18 to 29) living with their parents surpassed 50% in July 0f 2022, up from 38% in 2000. About 25% of Millennials (age 30 to 41) also live with one or both parents.

A significant percentage of these "boomerang" kids – as many as one in 8 - were living on their own before the coronavirus struck the U.S. in March 2020, upending the economy with higher home prices and 40-year inflation highs.
Rents rose an astonishing 14.07% from 2021 to 2022. Home prices also skyrocketed, at times by as much as 20.5% year-over-year.

Already entering the job market saddled with enormous student-loan debt, many young adults were already pushing marriage, family and homebuying back a few years. But when mortgage rates began rising at the end of 2022, they were forced to re-evaluate again.

For most, living with parents is largely strategic, paying down student loans and other debt, increasing savings, or even working on that all-important credit score and debt-to-income ratio to qualify for a home loan.

More than 90% of young adults surveyed said they would like to own a home in the future. Many reported saving up for a down payment while living with older relatives, either by setting aside a part of each paycheck and cutting back on spending.

Financial pressures continue to be the largest factor in multi-generation living scenarios. The older parents, not surprisingly, pay most of the expenses. Typically, the younger residents contribute about 22%.

But Pew found most multigenerational households derive economic benefits –from shared bills to shared childcare. Multigenerational households are less likely to be financially vulnerable, helping younger adults to navigate a tight housing market with limited affordable inventory.

Signs are appearing that younger people are finally branching out on their own, according to a National Association of Realtors (NAR) analysis. NAR found the share of adults ages 25 to 34 living at home fell by more than 2% between 2020 and 2022.

And with rent increases still rising, a record 27% of first-time homebuyers moved straight from their parents’ home to their own place in 2022 – up from just 15% in 1995!