Millennials & Property

Soaring prices has left millennials asking whether they will ever get on the property ladder.

• Home ownership among millennials, roughly defined as those born between 1981 and 1997, is dramatically lower in many high-income societies than in earlier generations.
• One reason for this is supply and demand, which, while middle class wages in many OECS countries have been stagnating over the past 30 years, causes house prices to rise much faster than wages.
• Another is the long-term decline in real interest rates, which has for years incentivised investment in assets such as property, as these often yield the best returns.
• Millennials have on average lower real incomes than people of previous generations when they were at similar ages, and millennials also tend to have accumulated fewer assets.
• In the UK for instance, up to a third of millennials face living in rented accommodation all their lives, raising fears of rocketing poverty rates among this cohort when they reach old age.
• We have put together a readlist on whether it’s realistic that more millennials will be able to own a home at some point, and how this might be achieved.