1 in 3 young Americans don't think they'll ever own a home. We break down the data behind the housing affordability crisis and what it means for building wealth.
There is a term gaining traction among economists and housing researchers right now: financial nihilism. It describes a growing sentiment among younger Americans that the traditional path to wealth — work hard, save up, buy a home — is simply no longer accessible to them. The data suggests they may not be wrong.
A Mercury Insurance survey of 1,000 Gen Z and Millennial non-homeowners found that 32% say they are unsure if they will ever own a home, and 97% agree their generation faces a tougher path to homeownership than the generations before them. A separate Clever Offers survey found that 79% of Gen Z believe they are priced out of homeownership entirely, and nearly half say they already struggle to pay rent every month.
These are not the complaints of a generation unwilling to work for it. They are a rational response to what seem to be insurmountable numbers.
To buy a median-priced home in America in 2026, you need to earn approximately $106,731 per year. The U.S. median household income is $83,730. That gap is not a rounding error. It is a structural barrier.
And circumstances have become dramatically worse in a short period of time. In 2019, the mortgage payment on a median-priced home consumed about 21% of median household income. Today it accounts for more than 30% of media household income. According to Realtor.com, returning to 2019 affordability levels would require household incomes to rise 56% to a median of $132,171. Real median household income however has only risen only about 17% over the past 20 years. The math is not even close.
The down payment problem compounds this further. Nearly half of millennials say their inability to save for a down payment is their primary barrier, and about 40% of Gen Zers are already working second jobs just to try to save for one. Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies found that national median home prices grew nearly 48% between 2019 and 2024, at more than twice the rate of median income growth.
It is worth pausing on that point because the conventional response to young people struggling with homeownership has often been to propose that they spend less on coffee or stop going to concerts. The data does not support this simplistic framing.
The Mercury Insurance survey found that 73% of Gen Z and Millennial non-homeowners say they would cut back on discretionary spending to afford a home. One third say they would get a second job, delay having children, or move back in with their parents. And yet 51% of those same respondents said that cutting back on discretionary spending would only somewhat or not at all help them achieve homeownership. They have done the math themselves.
The Clever Offers survey captured the sentiment directly: 69% of Gen Z think their generation is being punished financially for being born when they were.
What makes this more than just a housing story is what homeownership has historically represented: the primary vehicle for wealth building in America. 84% of current homeowners agree owning a home is still one of the best ways to build wealth. But access to that wealth-building mechanism is increasingly stratified by age.
Currently, only 26% of adult Gen Zers own a home, compared to 71% of Gen Xers and 79% of baby boomers at similar life stages. As Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather put it: younger Americans largely don't benefit from rising home prices by gaining equity — instead, they bear the burden of higher prices and higher mortgage payments, without the profits from a previous home purchase to help offset the costs. The longer this trend continues, the wider that gap becomes. And right now, there is no near-term fix on the horizon.
Here is where the conversation gets more interesting, and more hopeful toward possible solutions.
The prevailing assumption embedded in all of this data is that the only way to participate in real estate wealth is to buy a home outright. However, that assumption is increasingly flawed and outdated.
Fractional real estate investing with Realbricks allows investors to buy shares in income-producing rental properties without a down payment, without a mortgage, and without taking on the full financial burden of property ownership. At Realbricks, investors can get started for as little as $100, buying shares in real rental properties that are acquired completely debt-free, with no mortgage.
Availability of this option matters for a generation that has largely been told their only choices are to rent forever or somehow come up with a six-figure down payment. There is a third path: build exposure to real estate as an asset class through fractional investment, starting with whatever you have today.
The dream and pathway to owning a home may look different for Gen Z and younger Millennials than it did for their parents. But building wealth through real estate does not have to wait for a down payment that may never come.
Disclaimer: Investing in real estate involves risks, including the potential loss of capital. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Investors should perform their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions.
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