The plus side of Millennial homeownership…a whopping 79% consider home ownership to be a big part of the American Dream. The whopping downside of Millennial homeownership…nearly 63% regret buying their home, both data points according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com.
Millennials are not alone in having homebuyer’s remorse. Overall, Bankrate found that 44% of all homeowners have it. At nearly 63%, however, Millennials just have more buyer’s remorse than any other age group and nearly twice as much as Boomers have.
One potential cause for buyer’s remorse which Bankrate discovered while doing this survey was that only 30% of home buying Millennials actually visited their desired neighborhood…57% simply relied on social media to tell them the details instead.
Millennials’ most common complaint or regret about homeownership was having to deal with, fix and pay for home maintenance and repairs. Most as former renters never even considered maintenance and repair issues/costs as part of the homeowner package.
Bankrate analyst Deborah Kearns said, “Consumers should expect to set aside 1% of their home’s purchase price each year to keep in a savings account to cover (maintenance and repair) expenses, Budgeting early on can prevent dipping into emergency savings or going into debt to handle these added expenses.”
Other piped up complaints included the type of house, the location of the house, the size (too small/too large) of the house, a too high mortgage and/or a poor investment choice.
Bankrate’s Kearns’ take on a too high mortgage complaint is for Millennial buyers to do more work upfront. “Spend a few minutes using a mortgage calculator to determine what you can afford and shop around with at least three different lenders to ensure you’re getting the best rates and terms.”
And, incidentally, Black Knight just released data indicating that in Q4 2018, average home values declined by -0.8% or -$2,440 nationwide. Homes in San Jose, Seattle and San Francisco experienced steeper declines but home values in Idaho and Nevada increased +11 and above.
