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24% of tenured renters “seriously considered buying” before renting their home

By Treva Tam on 23 Apr 2024

Highlights

• Affordability remains a main reason why renters are renting their current home and plan to rent their next home.
• 65% of all renters said they would ideally own their own home. 34% would ideally rent.
•  85% of Millennial renters reported that buying a home in the next three years was “somewhat”, “very”, or “extremely” important to them.

24% of renters who have lived in their home for a year or more stated that they “seriously considered buying” when looking for a home to rent. [1] Why did these tenured renters end up renting their current home instead?

• 76% said they could not afford to buy
• 69% said it was not a good time to buy in the housing market when they were moving
• 62% said they could not find a home that met their criteria (e.g. size, location, floor plan)
• 37% said they did not have enough time to find a home they wanted to buy
• 24% said they did not plan to stay in their home long-term
• 24% said they did not want to be responsible for maintenance of their home

Regardless of  their current plans or situation, 65% of all renters said they would ideally own their home. About a third (34%) said they would ideally rent their home. Most renters think that buying a home in the near future is important to them. 73% of all renters say that buying a home in the next three years is “somewhat”, “very”, or “extremely important” for them. This is even truer for Millennials (renters between ages 27 and 42); 85% of Millennial renters reported that buying a home in the next three years was important to them.

More than three-quarters (77%) of Millennial renters plan to move in the next three years.  64% of all renters plan to move in the next three years. Of these renters that plan to move, 66% plan to buy their next home and 31% plan to rent their next home. For those that plan to rent their next home, affordability remains the main reason:

• 88% of those who plan to rent their next home said they cannot afford to buy it
• 68% do not think it is a good time to buy in the housing market
• 53% do not want to be responsible for maintenance of their next home
• 39% do not plan to stay in their next home long-term

When considering the affordability of buying and owning a home, renters have to assess multiple financial aspects. Looking at some of these, among renters who reported they can’t afford to buy their next home:

• 89% can’t afford the downpayment
• 68% can’t afford the monthly mortgage payments
• 65% can’t afford maintenance of owning their next home

Among renters who reported that it isn’t a good time to buy their next home in the housing market:

• 94% say that housing prices in the area they are interested in are too high
• 88% say that mortgage rates are too high
• 69% say that inventory of homes they are interested in is too low

Methodology 

These analyses use data from the 2023 ZG Population Science Mortgages and Moving Survey. Renters 18 years of age and older who did not move within the last 12 months were eligible for participation. The survey was fielded September 2023 and included 1,011 renters.  For the purpose of this study, “renters” refers to household decision makers who live in a home they rent. “Millennial” refers to people born between 1996 and 1981.

To achieve national representativeness, quotas for age, education, sex, region, race, and marital status limited oversampling of any given demographic group. In addition to using quotas for respondent sampling, ZG Population Science weighted the sample to the overall U.S. population using the U.S. Census Bureau 2022 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS ASEC) using these same characteristics.

[1] In this survey, 64% of tenured renters at least thought about buying while searching for a home to rent. This was similar to the proportion found in the 2023 Renters Consumer Housing Trends Report (CHTR).