Millennials continue to make up the largest share of homebuyers in the country, especially in the nation’s most populous cities. According to LendingTree, nearly 53% of mortgage offers in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas last year went to millennials, with this demographic making up the majority of buyers in 37 of these markets.
So, which of the country’s largest cities are the most popular among millennial homebuyers? LendingTree analyzed mortgage offers among users of its platform to find out.
In four of the nation’s 50 largest metros, millennials accounted for at least 60% of all mortgage offers. San Jose led the way with 63.6% of mortgages offered to millennials, followed by Denver (61.4%), Boston (60.6%) and Seattle (60.6%).
Notably, despite less affordability in more expensive coastal markets, eight of the top 10 cities for millennials in LendingTree’s study were located on either the Pacific or Atlantic seaboard. Only Denver and Austin (in fifth place with 59.4% of mortgages offered to millennials) were further inland. San Francisco (59.2%), New York (57.1%), San Diego (56.8%), Los Angeles (56.7%) and Washington, D.C. (56.4%) made up the rest of the top 10.
That’s despite many of these cities requiring millennials to make the largest downpayments on their newly purchased homes. For example, San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles — the first, sixth and ninth cities in LendingTree’s ranking — were the metros that had the largest downpayments among millennials. The average downpayment across the three California cities was $129,965.
Interestingly, much more affordability could be found among the 10 cities that had the lowest shares of mortgages offered to millennials. Las Vegas, which had the lowest share of mortgages to millennials at 41.9%, had an average millennial downpayment of only $49,604, less than 35% of the downpayment in San Jose. Birmingham, Alabama, which had the second lowest share of mortgages to millennials at 45.9%, had an even lower average downpayment at $46,998.
