The number of young Americans living with their parents is at a record high, with Gen Zers facing a daunting job market and a housing market in disarray. The typical milestones of getting married, having children, and buying a home are being pushed further into the future. This trend is particularly striking given that nearly a fifth of 25- to 34-year-olds live with their parents or grandparents, a record high. Young adults are still dreaming of homeownership, but the affordability hurdles are steep, and social norms have changed. Living with parents well into adulthood may no longer be the calamity it once was, but it is still a significant shift from the past. The millennial comparison offers some hope, as the oldest millennials own homes at roughly the same rate as their Gen X predecessors. However, this is no guarantee that the same will be true for Gen Zers, who are caught in the middle of several unique forces, from the country's slowing population growth to the death of the traditional starter home. The housing choices of Gen Zers today could reverberate for decades to come. Millennials were once the poster children of stunted adulthood, struggling to find their footing in the housing and job markets after the Great Recession. In 2016, roughly 16% of 25 to 34-year-olds lived with relatives, compared with 11% a decade earlier. The prevailing narrative was that millennials would never become homeowners, but elder millennials have mostly caught up with their Gen X predecessors in terms of homeownership. Younger adults have yet to reach that point, and the share living with parents jumped in 2020 during the pandemic, but trended downward in the next couple of years as borrowing rates plummeted and companies hired with gusto. The job market for young people was white-hot, but then came the spring of 2022, when the era of ultra-cheap home loans came to an abrupt end. Interest rates spiked, making all kinds of borrowing more expensive, and the job market hit the skids. The homeownership rate for young adults fell for two consecutive years, erasing the steady gains made from 2017 to 2022. A little less than 30% of 25-to-24-year-olds owned their home as of 2025, down from about 40% in 1990. The sudden shift in the market outlook was compounded by longer-term trends, like the shrinking pool of starter homes. Given the rising costs of land, materials, and cutting through red tape, homebuilders are pivoting to more lucrative projects that favor older buyers with deeper pockets. For young people, the hurdles to getting keys to their own place go beyond the dearth of cheap new builds. Renting a non-mom-and-dad-owned place is more expensive, and a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that 36% of older Gen Zers were sitting on student debt, compared to 31% of millennials at the same life stage. Chiamaka Onyemelukwe, 35, has lived with her mother in Alameda, California, since finishing her master's program in 2018. She dreams of working as a storyboard artist for a TV or film company, but has spent the past couple of years job-hunting after being laid off in late 2023. She recognizes that she's lucky to have a place to stay in her mother's two-bedroom rental, but she hopes the arrangement isn't permanent. Elizabeth Gomes, a 29-year-old in San Diego who works in public relations, lives the kind of rich, full life enjoyed by young professionals in big cities around the country. She travels, dines out weekly with friends, and enjoys going to concerts and Disneyland. She also lives with her parents, and she doesn't take it as an embarrassing thing anymore. Nick Chapman, 30, works in film marketing and recently moved home to the Southern California suburb of Simi Valley. Though he could afford the $1,550 monthly rent at his old apartment in Los Angeles, the cost pressures of living on his own left him feeling stagnant. Chapman grew up on movies like 'Stepbrothers,' which played the idea of grown men living at home for laughs. However, his parents had always made clear that he'd have a place to stay if needed, and his older brother had also spent some time at home after school. So far, he's enjoying the comforts (and savings) of home. While some younger adults may be prioritizing careers or simply putting off the whole white-picket-fence thing, the stark rise in young adults living with their folks, combined with the mounting barriers to entry for wannabe homeowners, sends a clear message to economists like Dietz. One person who may see fewer reasons for consternation is Elizabeth Gomes, a 29-year-old in San Diego who works in public relations. Gomes lives the kind of rich, full life enjoyed by young professionals in big cities around the country. She travels, dines out weekly with friends, and enjoys going to concerts and Disneyland. She also lives with her parents, and she doesn't take it as an embarrassing thing anymore. Nick Chapman, 30, works in film marketing and recently moved home to the Southern California suburb of Simi Valley. Though he could afford the $1,550 monthly rent at his old apartment in Los Angeles, the cost pressures of living on his own left him feeling stagnant. Chapman grew up on movies like 'Stepbrothers,' which played the idea of grown men living at home for laughs. However, his parents had always made clear that he'd have a place to stay if needed, and his older brother had also spent some time at home after school. So far, he's enjoying the comforts (and savings) of home. Mark Fleming, the economist at First American, offers a counterpoint to all the handwringing. He points to the rising homeownership rate of elder millennials as evidence that a delay doesn't equate to total discouragement. Extend some of these chart lines into the future, and the group may surpass Gen X in terms of homeownership. 'It just took time,' Fleming says. This story has been playing out for decades — for the vast majority of their adult lives, even baby boomers appeared to lag behind the silent generation before them on the homeownership front. The economy shifts, and priorities change. If there's one constant, it's the younger generations' knack for stirring concern among the silver-haired crowd. All signs point to the idea that once Gen Zers find their financial footing, they're likely to jump into the housing market. Finnigan views the delay as pent-up demand — people waiting in the wings to live on their own once conditions improve or the timing feels right. 'They'll catch up at some point,' Finnigan tells me. 'It's just a matter of when.'
