Boston millennials are overwhelmingly renters, report says

More than 72 percent of Boston’s millennials rent rather than own, according to an analysis from real estate research site Abodo. Just 27.6 percent of millennials in the region own a home.

The reason for such a relatively low share of homeowners among millennials? You guessed it: The cost of housing.

The average downpayment for a home in the Boston area was $85,943 as of 2015, according to Abodo. That means that a millennial—generally someone born after 1980—would have needed 18.4 years on average to save for a downpayment on a Boston-area home in 2015 (and prices have only increased in the two years since).

Predictably, then, most millennials in the region rent—though that’s no picnic, either, in terms of costs—or they get the downpayment money and other home-buying financing from relatives. (Or they simply up sticks and leave the region altogether.)

Those millennials who can finagle a piece of the region’s property pie are richly rewarded compared with much of the rest of the country: The average value of a millennial-owned home in the Boston area is $429,713.

That’s nearly twice the average in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area. Then again, more than 42 percent of millennials in that area own.

A millennial with your own story of home-buying in Boston? Share it in the comments section below.

• Millennial homebuyers [Abodo]
• Boston apartment rents flat: One-bedrooms now cheaper than in D.C. [Curbed Boston]
• Boston millennials a diverse, educated bunch [Curbed Boston]