Put members of Generation Z, those born from 1995 onward, into your prospective homebuyer’s basket. According to a new report by TransUnion, a consumer credit reporting agency that collects and aggregates over 1B individual consumers in over 30 countries, just released a new report that indicates 14M Gen Zers have some sort of credit balance and that some 319,000 Gen Zers took out a mortgage during 2018-2019.
More importantly, TransUnion predicts that some 13M Gen Zers will become credit eligible and begin taking out mortgage loans by 2022. In the present tense, the number of Gen Zers who took out mortgages this year has already grown +112% from last year.
Only Millennials, those born between 1981-1995, with 14.37M mortgage holders saw their mortgage holders rise +12% from February 2018 to February 2019. Gen Xers mortgage holders were flat at 23.76M; Boomer mortgage holders decreased -4% to 25.34M; and members of the Silent Generation who are mortgage holders decreased -9% to 4.50M.
Matt Komas, vice president of research and consulting with TransUnion, said, “From a generational perspective, Gen Z consumers accounted for 2% of total mortgage originations. Gen z may soon account for a large share of mortgage loan growth, however, as the median age of home buyers is 28 and the oldest individual in this generation are currently 24.”
Presently, Gen Zers have other debt. 45% have already taken out personal loans; 42% have taken out auto loans; and 41% already have credit card debt. Soon, according to this TransUnion study, Gen Zers will nearly match the number of 14.37M Millennials who now have mortgage loans.
