Once upon a time, the American Dream seemed to be pretty predictable: a detached, single-family home on a tree-lined street in the suburbs. There would be a white picket fence and a big backyard for the kids and pets to play in.
But if the home-buying trends of millennials today tell us anything, it’s that the American Dream is changing. And much of that can be attributed to changes in people’s needs in a world marked both by uncertainty and innovation.
Barriers to Homeownership
Buying a home today is not nearly as easy as it once was. Skyrocketing housing costs and increasingly stringent lending standards have made homeownership inaccessible for many borrowers. This is especially true for millennials in the US, who, though their earning potential may be greater than any generation that has come before them, are also saddled with higher levels of student debt than ever before.
And that means that many millennials have delayed or abandoned entirely the prospect of owning their own private home. Instead, they’re increasingly turning to multigenerational living, often returning to the parental nest, where they may choose to raise their children in the same house with not only their parents but also, now more than ever, their grandparents as well.
But millennials aren’t just sharing a home with multiple generations of their own family. Increasingly, they’re creating co-living arrangements with nonrelatives. Communal living not only helps millennials escape the burden of bearing a mortgage alone but distributes other obligations in a more manageable way. Both household expenses and housekeeping chores are shouldered not by one but by several individuals. And that can be a tremendous solace in today’s troubled times.
However, millennials aren’t just turning to co-living for pragmatic reasons. In the face of an enduring global pandemic and the persistent threat of more global lockdowns, millennials have turned to co-living to relieve some of the loneliness of this strangely changed new world.
Embracing Community
The lack of affordable housing, the high costs of maintaining a home, and the isolation of our pandemic era have made communal living highly attractive to millennial homebuyers. However, such considerations don’t just impact where millennials live and with whom.
Such factors are also shaping how millennials live. For example, now more than ever, millennials are seeking out communities that truly embrace the ethos of community – communities that are based not just on the sharing of neighborly support but also of resources. For example, access to a community garden has become a major selling point for millennials.
To be sure, this is an important practical concern, enabling these young adults to mitigate food costs in these financially challenging times. But such concerns are also ideological. Millennials were the first generation to be born in the thick of the era of climate change and, like their younger counterparts in Generation Z, environmental sustainability is a priority, a commitment, and an obligation for them.
Community gardens are one important tool that millennials are using to reduce their carbon footprint, to minimize their impact on the earth. And this ties in pretty well with communal and multigenerational living trends as well. One home, one household, and one community garden, the theory goes, leads to one happy, and less burdened, earth.
The Takeaway
Millennials aren’t just our future. They may also be our greatest teachers. And there is much to be learned from their homebuying trends today. Millennials’ turn toward co-living and multigenerational household speak to the need to defray the costs of accessing and managing a home in a time of vast economic uncertainty. At the same time, the rise of the community garden reflects millennials’ desire for a lifestyle that is not only practically affordable but also environmentally friendly.