Where Are First-Time Buyers Looking for Homes in 2022?

A June 2022 survey by Money and Morning Consult found that 48% of Generation Z and 44% of Millennials report that they are less likely to buy a home after a two-year barrage of mortgage rate hikes and unrelenting home price growth, but some cities are still attracting a higher-than-average share of first-time buyers.

The under-35 homeownership rate is highest in Florida’s Port St. Lucie (roughly 60%), followed by 57.60% in Surprise, AZ and 53.44% in Chesapeake, VA. On the contrary, Paterson, NJ, Fullerton, CA, and Jersey City, NJ are seeing the smallest under-35 homeownership rates in the country, SmartAsset reports.

Surprise, Arizona ranks as the top place where more young residents are buying homes. Surprise has seen a 10-year increase of 15.88 percentage points in the homeownership rate among people younger than 35, the second-largest growth in our study. The total homeownership for that age cohort in 2021 was 57.60%, also the second-highest rate we analyzed for that metric.

Across the other top nine cities where more young people are buying homes, Chesapeake, Virginia had the best overall 10-year change in the homeownership rate for those under 35. Census Bureau data shows that from 2011 to 2021 the under-35 homeownership rate in Chesapeake grew by almost 16 percentage points.

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