50% of Millennials Seek Parental Support to Cover Rent Or Buy a Home, Survey Finds

Soaring rent prices and years of unaffordability in the housing market have troubled the younger generation for years. They are now asking their parents to help them get a place. According to an exclusive poll conducted by Newsweek, about 50% of millennials think their parents should pay their rent to help them save for a home. The poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies included 1,500 participants across generations.

Millennials Demand Support, Do Their Parents Agree?

In the exclusive survey, 43% of respondents believed that parents who can afford to help should support their children by covering rental costs. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) were by far the generation with the highest rate with 50% of respondents saying so.

They were followed by the even younger generation, Gen Z (born between 1997-2012 ) with a 48% rate. Behind the two young generations were Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) with 37% and the Baby Boomers (1946-1964 ) and the Silent Generation (1928-1945) least agreed with the statement with a 40% rate.

Only 30% of millennials didn’t agree saying that the parents should not help any adult children pay rent. On the parameter, Gen Zers had a 32% rate and Gen Xers had a 36% agreement rate.

Here’s Why Millennials are Asking for Help

While the poll's results may add to the narrative of millennials lacking financial responsibility, but historical evidence suggests that homeownership has been difficult for the particular generation.

As per a Fortune report, millennials who largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market, have always been on the back foot. As the generation entered peak homebuying and household formation age, they were staring at 40-year-low housing affordability rates and 40-year-high mortgage rates.

According to Zillow, as of February 29, the average price of a home in the U.S. was $347,716, up by 3.6% over just the year before. Not just property prices but rent prices have also soared with the median price of an apartment in February 2024 being $1,981, 21% up compared to pre-pandemic times in March 2019, according to Rent.com.

The older millennials had to take the brunt of multiple economic setbacks and are struggling through the current affordability crisis as well. This group of people has also been saddled with student loan debts and economic uncertainty since they entered adulthood.

Executive director of Indiana University's Business Research Center, Phil Powell, previously told Newsweek that millennial households are forced to either allocate more money to savings or reduce their expectations when it comes to fulfilling their goals.

Powell added that it was the sad reality of supply and demand, and Millennials are saddled with higher costs of college than their parents and with higher costs of living and housing costs, which is likely going to worsen over the coming years.

This may be why an overwhelming majority of respondents, about 69%, across all generations said that it is indeed harder for young people to buy a home now than it was for their parents' generation.

Furthermore, about 57% of respondents in the Newsweek/Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll agreed that all parents should help their adult children with funding for their first home (not rent) if they are in a position to do so.