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Most people know Gen Z includes individuals born from 1997 to 2012. This means that right now they range from 13 to 28. By looking at those ages, you can see that some have reached adulthood, while others don’t yet have that status.
Like most generations, many individuals in Gen Z want to become homeowners. However, they face the same issues when trying to get there that multiple other generations do.
The housing market seems stagnant in some major cities right now, while elsewhere, it’s thriving. To some degree, you can look at what each city offers when determining who wants to move there.
For instance, over 1.3 million people live in Dallas, many of them homeowners. In some suburbs, a house that goes on the market might get offers within a couple of days. Elsewhere in America, cities where a house goes on the market might hardly see any offers at all, especially if that city doesn’t have much that would attract many homebuyers.
Getting back to Gen Z, it’s interesting to look at what they prioritize and how that’s potentially impacting their ability to purchase homes, both now and in the future. Let’s discuss this topic.
What Does Gen Z Prioritize in Their Careers?
First, it is probably not fair to state emphatically that Gen Z, or any other generation, has identifying traits that blanket or comprise the entire group. You can’t look at any generation as a monolith. They’re all individuals, and what one may prioritize won’t necessarily apply if you talk to someone else from that generation.
However, if you look at the older members of Gen Z, you’ll see that some have graduated from high school, while others have graduated from college. The eldest, in their late 20s, might have multiple years in the job market under their belts.
That’s enough to make some generalizations about what Gen Z prioritizes in their work lives, if not necessarily sweeping ones. Many employers have lamented that Gen Z doesn’t have any work ethic. However, most people would agree that’s a drastic oversimplification of a much more complex topic.
Some employers don’t feel like Gen Z members have much work ethic, or any at all, because they’re not willing to show single-minded company loyalty. If they don’t feel like a job’s working out for them, they will often move on without even giving the two weeks of notice that many industries considered standard for so many years.
How Does This Impact the Housing Market?
There’s a connection between this behavior and the housing market that’s perhaps not immediately evident. If someone from any generation wants to buy a house, and they don’t have familial wealth, then logically, they will save up the money from their job till they have enough for a down payment. Ideally, they will get a mortgage with a relatively reasonable monthly payment and interest rate.
This presupposes, though, that they have some degree of job security. You can never completely know your job security status. However, you could make the argument that in years past, if you showed company loyalty, then it wasn’t as likely you would lose your job unless you demonstrated gross negligence.
There was always a slight chance that the company would go under. If that didn’t happen, then perhaps you could stay with that same business entity long enough to pay off the mortgage and own your house outright.
Again, if a Gen Z member feels that a job’s not working out for them, several employers have commented that they’ll simply quit, often with no notice at all. You could debate whether that’s sensible behavior, but in this instance, that’s not the point.
If a Gen Z member wants a house, that might make them more inclined to stay with the same company and deal with more situations they don’t like. Since most of them won’t willingly do that like members of previous generations would, plenty of Gen Z members simply expect that they’ll never own homes.
This ultimately means that at least for the moment, hardly any Gen Z members have the job security or funds to seriously bid on homes, at least not unless they’re getting cash from parents or other family members.
There's No Guarantee This Trend Will Continue
We should note, though, that just because this seems like a trend right now, that doesn’t mean it will stay that way. We’re not implying that Gen Z members might suddenly decide to start staying at jobs longer if they find the conditions onerous. We’re simply stating that many members of Gen Z haven’t even graduated from high school yet, let alone college.
They’re not yet in the housing market. Within the next decade-plus, when you can consider most of Gen Z legally adults, maybe we’ll see more of them finding ways to get the funds necessary to become serious bidders for homes that go on the market.
While there’s no reliably predicting how many Gen Z members will become homeowners in their later years, it’s fascinating to see how the other generations react to Gen Z’s fairly casual attitude toward work. It might seem like they’re needlessly or even recklessly cavalier in the way they will quit a job because they don’t feel it’s a good fit for them, even if they don’t yet have a replacement lined up.
This behavior seems to directly contribute to the refrain, particularly from the Boomer generation, that Gen Z doesn’t have any work ethic or that “no one wants to work anymore.” While some individuals in Gen X and the Millennial generation seem to feel the same, many more of them seem to admire this trend. Some seem willing to follow in the footsteps of these younger members of society.
While quitting jobs and not having as much homebuying power might seem myopic, plenty of individuals feel that the rest of society should normalize and even celebrate such behavior.
