Millennials pay less for homes in Dayton

Millennials who want affordable home prices in an urban market may want to check out the Gem City.

Of the top 100 major metro areas in the nation, just three have lower median home purchase prices than Dayton for people under the age of 35, according to data from Realtor.com.

The Dayton area may not be on the radar of most millennials, the oldest of whom were born in the early 1980s.

But the region is hard to beat for home affordability, and it's also been recognized as having a good quality of life by Outside Magazine and other respected publications.

Dayton is not a young-people magnet like Seattle, Miami, San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Dayton is small by comparison, and those large markets have strong economies and job growth as well as many amenities and attractions that are scarce in smaller Rust Belt cities.

Dayton, Ohio
The Miami River travels along passing through Dayton Ohio

But millennials are a large and important part of the housing market, especially considering they are now more numerous than baby boomers.

Nationally, they account for the largest share of home buyers (34%), two-thirds of whom were purchasing their first home, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Millennials are fairly well represented in Dayton's housing market.

About 42% of mortgages in the Dayton region were taken out by people under the age of 35, according to Realtor.com data. The data show Dayton ranks 38 out of the top 100 metros for its share of younger home buyers.

Nearly all home buyers under the age of 36 finance their home purchases, experts say.

For buyers under the age of 35, Dayton's median home purchase price is $130,000, which is $88,000 less than young buyers pay nationally, Realtor.com data show.

For people with mortgages of all ages, the median home purchase price in the Dayton region is $139,949, the data show.

Out of the top 100 U.S. metro areas, the only markets with lower median home purchase prices for younger buyers was Toledo ($129,000), Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pa. ($127,699), and Youngstown ($99,900).

Millennials are significantly less likely to own their homes than earlier generations, and many still live under their parents' roof, according to the Pew Research Center.

But eight in 10 millennials who are renting want to buy their own house or condo at some point, according to a survey of 24,000 renters by Apartment List. But affordability remains the major obstacle.

Many millennials have student debt. Others do not have enough savings for a down payment.

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