The news in the housing market has been more good than bad lately. Housing starts, permits, existing home sales, home prices: the data has been moving to the upside. But what about housing demographics?
There are 76 million family households in the US. In 2000, 3.7% of them were multigenerational homes. In 2010, it was 4%. Today, it’s 5.6%. Not only are multigenerational households increasing, they have been increasing at a faster pace over the past few years, according to the US Census Bureau.
And the 1.6% increase in multigenerational living in the past couple of years amounts to a decrease in demand for 1.216 million homes.
Even more telling: a recent Pew Research Center study found that 39% of 18 to 34 year-olds live with their parents, or moved back in at some point in the past three years.
And the majority of these 18 to 34 year-olds say they didn’t move back home for economic reasons. In many cases, they never moved out in the first place. They are comfortable in a multigenerational household. And because this is the prime age group for housing demand, this is the group that can really impact the housing market.