15 Trends From Zillow Group’s Consumer Housing Trends Report

The Zillow Group pulled out 15 highlights about homeowners, renters, buyers, sellers, and rural America from this year’s Zillow Group Report on Consumer Housing Trends. Here are some of their findings about each group:

Forty percent of U.S. homeowners share their home with a pet. The data on Americans and their pets is so sparse; it’s a socio-economic research black hole. It was great to finally put a number on the phenomenon. And the number is impressive: Four in 10 American homeowners have a pet, mostly dogs.

When renters decide to relocate, it’s often prefaced by an increase in rent. Seventy-nine percent of renters who moved from a previous rental experienced a rent increase before moving, with more than half, 57 percent, indicating that their decision to move was directly influenced by that increase, including 26 percent who state they were greatly affected by a rent increase previously. Only 21 percent experienced no rent increase in their prior home before moving.

Fifty-seven percent of first-time buyers also considered renting, with 62 percent of Millennials most likely to consider that path. Given the state of the market for first-time and younger buyers, it’s no wonder. Owning a home can have a lot of financial advantages over the long haul compared to renting, but renting offers flexibility for many would-be buyers who are not quite ready to make a jump.

Millennials make up almost one-third (32 percent) of sellers. For all the talk about Millennials having trouble saving down payments and getting into their first homes, a fair share of them have both done that and are turning around to sell.

Hispanics are the largest non-white group in rural America. In few parts of America do generational and race/ethnic gaps overlap as much as they do in rural America, which has a large share of older white homeowners on one hand and a sizable group of young, nonwhite renters on the other.

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