Your Rental Concierge

• 87 percent of Gen Z respondents to our survey view homeownership as being at least somewhat important, similar to the rate for millennials. However, the share who consider homeownership to be “extremely important” is notably lower for Gen Z (26 percent vs 35 percent of young millennials).
• 77 percent of Gen Z view homeownership as being “at least somewhat attainable” within the next 10 years. However, Just 13 percent think that homeownership is “extremely attainable,” significantly lower than the shares for young millennials (21 percent) and older millennials (23 percent).
• When combining views of importance and attainability, we find that just 9 percent of Gen Z view homeownership as both “extremely important” and “extremely attainable.” This is significantly less than the comparable rates for young millennials (16 percent) and older millennials (17 percent).
• Despite a generally positive outlook on homeownership, it’s not a goal that many Gen Z renters are actively working toward. Just 16 percent say that it’s currently their top financial priority, well below the shares that are prioritizing personal savings and investments (35 percent) and paying down debt (27 percent).
• 56 percent of Gen Z respondents say that they expect help from family with a future down payment. Among those with high confidence of down payment assistance, over 56 percent feel that homeownership is extremely attainable, but for those who do not expect any assistance, just 17 percent consider homeownership extremely attainable.
• Remote work is likely to shape future housing choices for Gen Z, but among Gen Z respondents, just 17 percent view remote work as an extremely desirable working arrangement, compared to nearly one-third of millennials.
• 30 percent of Gen Z state that being in an affordable housing market where home ownership is financially attainable is the most important factor determining where they would like to live in the future.

In a year when people have yearned for a return to normal, the rental market has been anything but. Not only are rent prices rising, they are rising tremendously fast and rising virtually everywhere. According to our national rent estimates, prices jumped over 11 percent in the first half of 2021, more than doubling the rate of inflation and more than tripling the typical rent growth we measured in the several years preceding the pandemic. Today, 87 of the nation’s 100 largest cities have fully rebounded to pre-pandemic rent prices, and in smaller cities like Boise, ID; Bend, OR; and Spokane, WA; rents are up more than 30 percent since last March.

What’s driving these dramatic rent spikes? In this report, we highlight five interconnected trends that help explain why rent increases are sweeping the nation. We do not intend for this to be a comprehensive list, nor do we suggest the relative weight of each individual factor on price changes. Instead, we hope to highlight ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated affordability concerns by disrupting supply and demand in both the rental and for-sale housing markets.

• There are 4.6 million workers in the U.S. who commute 90+ minutes each way, comprising 3.1 percent of the American workforce. From 2010 to 2019, the number of super commuters nationally increased by 45 percent, more than tripling the growth rate of the overall workforce.
• Super commuting is concentrated in the nation's most expesnive markets -- the New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco regions collectively contain nearly one-in-three super commuters nationally.
• Nearly half of super commuters live within a 30 mile radius of their region’s commercial center, illustrating how this trend is symptomatic of excessive traffic congestion and lack of public transit options. Those who commute by public transit are five times more likely to be super commuters compared to those who drive.
• Remote work is unlikely to meaningfully alleviate this long-term trend. Since the start of the pandemic, the fastest rent growth in large metros has been occuring in the further suburbs and exurbs, indicating that hybrid remote work arrangement could create a new class of part-time super commuters.
• With massive infrastructure investments currently top of mind for policymakers, the rapid expansion of super commuting highlights the need to rethink America’s urban areas in a way that prioritizes plentiful new housing developed around robust public transit.