Key Points:

• After a delayed start, younger generations are gaining ground in homeownership, driven by rising earnings, maturing careers, and the decision to form families.
  
  
• Millennials are accelerating purchases in their thirties, matching Gen X by their early forties and positioned to modestly surpass them as incomes grow and family formation continues.
  
  
• Gen Z is entering the housing market with surprising strength, outperforming earlier cohorts in their early 20s and running 1.7 percentage points ahead of millennials at age 28.
  
  

Like Thanksgiving dinner, homeownership brings generations together—even if everyone arrives at different times. With that in mind, we used the latest 2025 Current Population Survey microdata to examine the generational makeup at this year’s homeownership table—and how the seating chart is shifting. What we find is a housing market in transition: older homeowners still claim most of the seats, but younger generations are pulling up chairs fast.

“…Millennials and Gen Z remind us that, while the journey to homeownership may lengthen, the destination remains the same.”

Same Destination, Different Timelines

Buying a home rarely happens in isolation. It’s typically sparked by life’s turning points—marriage, children, career changes, or simply the need for more space. Economic forces—affordability, mortgage rates, and supply—decide when aspiration becomes action, yet the initial spark almost always comes from life itself.

Boomers and Gen X typically married, started families, and settled into careers earlier in their lives, which often led to buying homes in their late 20s or early 30s. Millennials and Gen Z, on the other hand, have spent more time in school and building careers—and face tighter housing supply and significant affordability headwinds—delaying marriage, parenthood and, as a result, their first home purchase.

This delay has widened the homeownership gap—first for millennials and now for Gen Z— through their early thirties as the chart below shows. By age 30, roughly half of boomers and Gen Xers owned a home. Millennials didn’t reach that mark until 33, and Gen Z appears to be on a similar trajectory.

Millennials, the largest and most educated generation in U.S. history and once branded “forever renters,” are rapidly buying homes in their thirties and reaching parity with Gen X by their early forties, proving the dream of homeownership wasn’t dashed, just delayed. 

Gen Z—the newest face at the homeownership table, benefitted from pandemic-era low borrowing costs, wage gains, and remote work flexibility, which helped them buy sooner than previous generations. Their early-20s ownership rate tops prior cohorts and, by age 28, Gen Z is 1.7 percentage points ahead of millennials. For a generation still in its 20s, this early strength suggests their ownership curve could match—or even edge past—millennials in their early 30s.

Not to be left out, Gen X—the housing market’s “middle child”—is also reaching new milestones. As the oldest Gen Xers hit their 60s, they are narrowing the gap with boomers that opened in their 40s and 50s during the Great Financial Crisis. They trail by just 1.7 percentage points, and the distance shrinks each year.

One last generational boost for millennials and Gen Z may come from boomers, whose ownership rates remain high well into their 70s. Aging in place has slowed turnover but, as more Boomers enter their 80s, life-stage moves and senior-living transitions will gradually return well-located homes to the market, creating a demographic tailwind of supply that could accelerate younger buyers’ path to homeownership.

A Thanksgiving Toast to Homeownership Across Generations

Homeownership has always represented more than property—it’s about family, connection, and the milestones that shape our lives. Boomers and Gen X may have entered homeownership sooner, but millennials and Gen Z remind us that while the journey to homeownership may lengthen, the destination remains the same. With affordability improving, inventory loosening, and buyer activity slowly gaining momentum into 2026, the outlook sets a solid backdrop for younger generations to catch up as Gen Z rounds out its 20s and millennials settle into their late 30s and 40s. Through all the shifts, homeownership endures as a cornerstone of the American Dream—and for that, we are thankful.