Top 5 hot spots for millennial homebuyers
While home prices remain high thanks to an inventory crunch, more millennials are becoming first-time home buyers as they approach their late-20s and mid-30s.
In fact, 21 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 said they planned to purchase a home in 2019, according to Trulia. That’s compared with 14 percent last year.
Online loan marketplace LendingTree analyzed new mortgage purchase requests between January and November for individuals under the age of 35 to find out where millennials were most active in the housing market.
Here’s a look at the most popular cities among younger Americans:
1. Salt Lake City
In Salt Lake City, more than half of all mortgage purchase requests came from individuals under the age of 35. The average amount requested in the Utah city was $234,391.
The average age of the millennial homebuyer in Salt Lake City was 28.
2. Minneapolis
Millennials made up 48 percent of new mortgage purchase requests between January and November in Minneapolis, where the total population is more than 3.6 million. The average age of the millennial homebuyer was 28.5 and the average down payment among the group was $29,111.
3. Pittsburgh
Like Minneapolis, millennials in Pittsburgh requested 48 percent of new mortgages. They had an average credit score of 650 and requested about $128,316.
4. Buffalo, New York
In Buffalo, the average age of a millennial homebuyer was 28.4. The demographic made up 46 percent of all new mortgage requests. The average amount requested was $126,907 and the average down payment was about $19,206.
5. Denver
The fifth-most popular city for millennials looking to purchase a home this past year was Denver. Forty-five percent of new mortgage requests last year came from individuals under the age of 35 – of whom the average age was 28.9 and the average credit score was 680.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
6. St. Louis
7. Kansas City, Missouri
8. Columbus, Ohio
9. Rochester, New York
10. Cincinnati
The least popular cities among millennials were Tampa, Las Vegas and Miami.