High home prices, low inventory, and rising mortgage rates are plaguing the housing market right now. But that hasn't deterred Gen Z from buying homes.
Around 18% of successful homebuyers in the US this year were a part of the youngest cohort of adults, according to Zillow's annual Consumer Housing Trend Report, which surveyed 11,800 people and defines Gen Z as those between the ages of 18 to 28.
Hotspots for these young homeseekers are no longer coastal metropolises. Instead they are spots concentrated in the Midwest, upstate New York, or the South — where Gen Z made up at least 20% of buyers between April and July, Zillow found.
Popular regions for Gen Z like the rust-belt and the Midwest are "punching a little bit above their weight," with first-time homebuyers, who tend to be younger, Manny Garcia, Zillow's senior population scientist, told Insider.
Aidan Dobbins, a Gen Zer who bought his Baltimore home at 23, told Insider last year that homeownership is a priority for his generation because they have "internalized," the fears of financial insecurity that millennials faced as they came of age during the Great Recession.
It has "almost morphed into motivation to be able to get your piece of the pie as soon as you can so that you can be secure for the rest of your life," he said.
Here are the places that have the highest share of Gen Z homebuyers. Home prices for each metro are from Zillow, and average yearly income is based on the average hourly wage for the metro in May 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.