Five Factors that Will Fuel the Millennial Mortgage Boom

WALNUT CREEK, CA—The largest generation in the history of the United States is maturing into their prime home-buying years. But experts differ over whether the estimated 80 million Millennials will jump into the housing market the way generations before them have. With all the talk of a sharing economy, overwhelming student loan debt and the Millennials’ new outlook on ownership, deep questions remain over whether this maturing generation will set off a mortgage boom in the next decade. Here are five reasons why I believe that Millennials will represent the largest influx of new homeowners the nation has ever seen over the next decade.

• A $30-Trillion Boomer-to-Millennial Wealth Transfer is in Progress. Millennials are constantly stereotyped as cash-strapped and unemployed. And while their unemployment rate did soar to 14% during the depths of the recession and the Wall Street Journal recently pegged Millennials’ average net worth at $10,400, this is only temporary. Millennials are set to inherit an estimated $30 trillion from their parents—the cash-flush Baby Boomer generation. This wealth transfer will occur over the next 30 to 40 years, but for the older Millennials, who are the children of the older Boomers, that inheritance is already slowly trickling down, funding down payments for first-time home purchases and changing the economic fortunes of Millennials who now have both feet firmly planted in adulthood.