Millennials Are Snatching Up Homes in These 10 Metros

Millennials have long strugged to afford homes, evidenced by the fact that the median age of homeownership is now 38 and getting older. However, in some markets, one in every 25 residents between the ages of 25 and 44 purchased a home with a conventional mortgage in 2024, prompting financial services company SmartAsset to issue a report that analyzed 2024 mortgage data to figure out the most popular areas where Millennials are buying homes.

Leading that list is the Raleigh-Cary, N.C. metro area, where 19,735 conventional mortgages were issued to Millennials in 2024, representing about 4.5% of all homeowners in that area. Indianapolis and Charlotte, N.C. follow. In both those metros, Millennials account for roughly 4.3% of conventional mortgage holders. 

However, not every market is seeing the same level of interest from Millennial buyers. Many expensive coastal markets, such as San Francisco, are seeing far less interest from that cohort.

In the San Francisco Bay area, only 0.52% of Millennials purchased homes. With a total of just 6,993 mortgages issued, the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro is the least popular among Millennial homeowners. At the same time, the new Millennial homeowners here have the highest median income studywide at $331,500. Similarly, low rates of home purchases by this cohort were evident in the metros of New York City (0.76%) and Miami (0.94%).