Young Americans Abandoning Homeownership Plans at Record Rate, Gallup Survey Finds

The Numbers Are Stark

Homeownership has long been treated as a default milestone of American adulthood. According to Gallup data reported by Statista, that assumption is now actively breaking down.

Just 25 percent of non-homeowners say they expect to purchase a home within the next five years. That is the lowest recorded share since Gallup first posed the question in 2013.

Among adults aged 18 to 34, historically the engine of first-time home buying, the collapse in confidence is sharper. In 2013 and 2015, 57 percent of that age group expected to buy within five years. By 2025 and 2026, that figure had dropped to 29 percent.

Who Has Given Up Entirely

The more troubling shift is not delay. It is outright abandonment.

The share of non-owners who say they do NOT see themselves buying a home in the foreseeable future has more than doubled, rising from 13 percent to 30 percent over the same period, according to Gallup's data as reported by Statista.

The remainder expects to wait longer before buying a home, either to build up savings for a down payment or in hopes that prices and mortgage rates will come down from their current levels.

What Is Actually Driving This

The three-part squeeze is straightforward. Elevated home prices, high mortgage rates, and a period of stagnant real wages have left many families unable to even consider homeownership, according to the source reporting on Gallup's findings. Monthly payments have become unaffordable even on homes that were once considered modest.

A down payment on a median-priced home now requires years of disciplined saving for a household earning a median income in most major metro markets.

The Strongest Counterargument

Skeptics of the doom-and-gloom framing make a fair point: surveys measure sentiment, not outcomes. Young people have historically underestimated their own future purchasing power. Life events — marriage, children, inheritance, career advancement — can shift housing decisions rapidly, and survey intentions at 25 do not reliably predict behavior at 32.

There is also a regional dimension the aggregate numbers flatten. In many Midwestern and Southern markets, home prices remain considerably more accessible than in coastal metros. A 29-year-old in Columbus or Tulsa faces a very different affordability calculus than one in San Jose or Boston.

But even granting all of that, a 28-percentage-point drop in purchase intentions among young adults over roughly a decade — from 57 percent to 29 percent — is not explainable by survey noise or regional variation alone. Something structural has shifted.

Downstream Economic Effects

Homeownership rates feed directly into broader economic patterns: household formation, furniture and appliance purchases, local tax bases funded by property taxes, and the intergenerational wealth transfer that homeowners eventually pass to their children. When a generation delays ownership by five to ten years or skips it entirely, those downstream effects compound.

Landlords and institutional rental investors capture a larger share of housing stock when owner-occupant demand softens. That concentrates wealth upward rather than distributing it through the middle class, which has historically relied on home equity as its primary savings vehicle.

The Policy Picture Is Messy

There is no shortage of proposed remedies on both sides. Supply-side advocates argue that restrictive local zoning and permitting costs have constrained construction, keeping prices artificially high. Demand-side advocates push for first-time buyer assistance programs, though critics note those programs can inflate prices further by adding purchasing power without adding supply.

The federal government's role in mortgage markets through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA guarantees means taxpayers are already deeply embedded in housing finance. Whether that system is functioning as intended or locking in incumbent homeowners at the expense of aspiring ones is a question neither party has answered with any consistency.

Where This Stands

Gallup has not announced a follow-up wave of this survey. The 2025/2026 data cited by Statista represents the most current reading available. Whether the 29 percent figure among young adults stabilizes or continues to fall will depend heavily on how mortgage rates and home prices move in the coming months — neither of which any credible forecaster is predicting with confidence right now.