When buying a new home, you want to have time to check the foundations, research the neighborhood, and compare other options to find a dream house. But after getting pressured into impulse buys by a wild housing market, millennial homebuyers have some regrets.
In fact, they have a lot.
Over 80% of millennials who recently bought a home have at least one significant regret about the homebuying process or the house itself, according to a recent study.
These regrets include inconvenient locations, a bad fit with the neighborhood, decreased home value, and ending up with a fixer-upper.
The study, released at the end of January by housing guidance service Real Estate Witch, interviewed 1,000 people online with questions related to finances and homebuying plans. It found the most significant cause behind homeowners’ regret was that millennials felt rushed into making big life decisions because of a competitive housing market.
Millennials, generally thought to be between 25 and 40 years old, were inclined to feel more pressured than other demographics. While 42% of millennials were prepared to make snap decisions on buying a home, only 24% of baby boomers felt the same way.
Millennials are aging into being the biggest homebuying demographic in the U.S. right now, but insane competition for housing is making it increasingly difficult for younger prospective homeowners to nail down deeds.
The study found that over half of all millennial home seekers were obstructed in the housing market by high competition, expensive prices, and concerns over debt. In fact, one in three millennials is concerned that their debt might disqualify them from a mortgage.
Real estate in 2022 is dominated by high prices for new homes and low inventory of affordable ones, and competition with more financially stable and home-seeking-savvy generations is pushing many millennials to make riskier decisions and possibly live with more regrets.
The study indicates that nearly one-third of millennials intend to live in their homes for less than five years, hoping that properties continue appreciating and prices keep rising. And while homes are appreciating at a much faster rate than they were before the pandemic, making your home more valuable usually entails a lot of work.
Millennials are much more likely than other generations to purchase a house that requires extensive repairs and care, according to the Real Estate Witch study, but one in four who do so end up regretting it. Millennials are taking bigger gambles on real estate in the hopes that they can make more money further down the line, but many young homeowners are ending up regretting risky investments.
