Key Findings:
- Top 50 cities for millennial homeowners averages $215,505 median home value.
- Top 50 cities for millennial homeowners home value is $14,095 less than the national median home value of $229,600.
- Only five of the top 25 cities have a median home value higher than the national median home value, Seattle being the highest at $713,100.
- Ohio cities Cleveland and Columbus, most popular for millennial homeowners.
- Texas cities Austin and Katy, among top cities for millennial homeowners.
- Eighty percent of U.S. counties are at or below the FHA floor limit of $314,827.
Millennials are often labeled as the generation buried under mounds of student loan debt, with no retirement savings and who frequently spend on avocados. Such sweeping generalizations would assume millennials are not buying homes. While there's certainly some truth to that in places like New York and San Francisco, it's not impossible for millennials to buy in other places.
Millennials are finding ways to become homeowners in places above and below the national average Zillow Home Value Index of $229,600. Seattle, San Jose and Austin are tech-driven cities fostering millennial homeownership even with significantly higher ZHVI than most cities. The likely driver of millennials' affording homes in popular cities are Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans. FHA loans help cash-strapped millennials by getting them into a home with down payments as low as 3.5%.
In most of the popular cities for millennial homeowners, the FHA loan floor of $314,827 is well above the ZHVI in those cities. This provides millennials access to a greater number of affordable housing options under an FHA loan. While FHA loans make most cities affordable for millennial homeownership, we here at QuoteWizard wanted to look at the top cities in the country where millennials are owning homes.
We analyzed data from QuoteWizard users comparing home insurance quotes to find which cities had the highest rate of millennial homeownership. Rankings are based on the top 50 cities with the highest rate of millennial homeowners. Rate of homeownership looked at the rate of millennial homeowners aged 23-38 completing a home insurance quote compared to other age groups. To get a median home pricing figure, we looked at the Zillow Home Value Index. The ZHVI is the median Zestimate valuation for a given geographic area on a given day.
| City | Zillow median home value |
|---|---|
| 1. Cleveland, OH | $58,000 |
| 2. Columbus, OH | $157,900 |
| 3. Austin, TX | $372,200 |
| 4. Katy, TX | $247,200 |
| 5. Clinton Township, MI | $175,400 |
| 6. Jackson, MS | $124,452 |
| 7. Nashville, TN | $263,300 |
| 8. Greenville, SC | $188,700 |
| 9. Dallas, TX | $213,200 |
| 10. Baton Rouge, LA | $163,000 |
| 11. Detroit, MI | $162,800 |
| 12. Columbia, SC | $136,900 |
| 13. Colorado Springs, CO | $296,100 |
| 14. Fort Worth, TX | $198,800 |
| 15. Grand Rapids, MI | $162,400 |
| 16. Philadelphia, PA | $157,500 |
| 17. Anderson, SC | $150,400 |
| 18. Lubbock, TX | $137,700 |
| 19. Muskegon, MI | $127,500 |
| 20. Saginaw, MI | $107,300 |
| 21. Lansing, MI | $89,100 |
| 22. Buffalo, NY | $86,800 |
| 23. Toledo, OH | $71,800 |
| 24. Seattle, WA | $713,100 |
| 25. Houston, TX | $189,500 |
| 26. Spring, TX | $196,800 |
| 27. Baltimore, MD | $116,700 |
| 28. Miami, FL | $336,200 |
| 29. Tampa, FL | $220,100 |
| 30. Durham, NC | $230,900 |
| 31. Kansas City, MO | $148,800 |
| 32. Plano, TX | $335,200 |
| 33. Denver, CO | $422,400 |
| 34. Montgomery, AL | $84,300 |
| 35. Arlington, TX | $211,200 |
| 36. San Jose, CA | $990,700 |
| 37. Raleigh, NC | $278,400 |
| 38. Virginia Beach, VA | $269,600 |
| 39. Amarillo, TX | $132,800 |
| 40. Anchorage, AK | $339,000 |
| 41. Flint, MI | $19,200 |
| 42. Sterling Heights, MI | $211,700 |
| 43. Dallas, GA | $189,600 |
| 44. Louisville, KY | $163,700 |
| 45. Shreveport, LA | $164,900 |
| 46. Little Rock, AR | $141,000 |
| 47. Sacramento, CA | $327,200 |
| 48. Agusta, GA | $129,900 |
| 49. Wichita, KS | $129,600 |
| 50. Chicago, IL | $227,300 |
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