Will Gen Z Ever Own a Home? Mapping the Global Housing Crisis Beyond Avocado Toast

Gen Z homeownership data from the US, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada and beyond. Real numbers, country comparisons, and the structural forces, not avocado toast, keeping young people out of the market.

Published on: April 21, 2026

Quick answer: Gen Z is entering the housing market later and with more family help than previous post-war generations, and the cause is structural, not lifestyle. In the US, 32.6% of 27-year-old Gen Z Americans owned a home in 2024 versus 38.4% of Gen Xers and 40.5% of baby boomers at the same age, a gap of roughly 6–8 percentage points. The drivers are consistent across developed economies: sustained under-construction since 2008, restrictive zoning, low rates that inflated asset prices followed by 2022–2024 hikes that raised borrowing costs without lowering prices proportionally, investor demand, and weak real wage growth for under-35s. For cross-border investors this supports residential rental yields, raises the likelihood of regulatory intervention in the most stretched markets, and makes the coming $80–90 trillion boomer wealth transfer a market-shaping force.

In 2017, an Australian property developer named Tim Gurner suggested on television that young people couldn't afford houses because they were spending too much money on smashed avocado on toast. The remark went viral, became a meme, and then, more importantly, became a kind of intellectual cover. For nearly a decade afterwards, every conversation about why young people weren't buying homes had to first defeat the avocado theory before it could get to the actual numbers.

Eight years on, the actual numbers are easier to assemble. They are also unambiguous: across nearly every developed economy, members of Generation Z (born roughly 1997–2012) are entering the housing market later, more selectively, and with more help from parents than any previous post-war generation. The pattern is not driven by lifestyle preferences. It is driven by a specific structural mismatch between wages, asset prices, and the cost of credit that has been building since the 2008 financial crisis and that the post-pandemic interest-rate cycle made considerably worse.

Whether Gen Z will eventually own homes at the rates their parents did is now a real question, and the answer depends substantially on which country they happen to live in.

What the U.S. Numbers Actually Show

The cleanest dataset comes from the United States, where the homeownership question has been measured with consistent methodology for decades.

According to a Redfin analysis of the Current Population Survey published in early 2026, the Gen Z homeownership rate in the U.S. ticked up to 27.1% in 2025, from 26.1% the year before. Millennials reached 55.4%, up from 54.9%. For comparison, Gen X stood at 72.7% and baby boomers at 79.9%.

These numbers tell three stories at once.

The first is that homeownership is rising for younger generations, a fact often obscured in the headlines. Affordability improved marginally in 2025: weekly average mortgage rates fell from about 7% to 6.2%, supply increased, and home-price growth lost some momentum. Some young people on the margin moved into the market.

The second is that the rise is small. A one percentage point gain in the Gen Z homeownership rate is meaningful at the population level but does not signal a structural break. Asad Khan, a senior economist at Redfin, framed it precisely: young Americans are making "small gains in homeownership because they're eager to buy, they're making sacrifices, and because affordability has improved a bit at the margins, not because homes suddenly became affordable."

The third is the cohort comparison, which is where the structural problem becomes visible. In 2024, 32.6% of 27-year-old Gen Z Americans owned a home. At the same age, 38.4% of Gen Xers and 40.5% of baby boomers had owned. Adjusted for cohort, Gen Z is roughly 6–8 percentage points behind where their parents and grandparents were at the same point in life, and that gap has been remarkably stable for the past several years.

A separate Coldwell Banker / Harris Poll survey published in late 2025 found that 84% of Gen Z respondents said they were delaying other life milestones, marriage, children, career changes, specifically in order to save for a home. Among Gen Z respondents who don't yet own, 56% expect to be at least 30 years old before they buy, up from 39% who said the same the year before. Median expected down payment savings target: $54,546, well above the actual U.S. average down payment of around $30,250.

These are not the numbers of a generation that has prioritised lifestyle over assets. They are the numbers of a generation that has correctly identified a higher hurdle and responded by sacrificing other things to clear it.

The Country-by-Country Map

Aggregate U.S. numbers obscure the more important fact: housing affordability for young adults varies enormously by country, and the variation is driven less by income and more by the structure of the local housing market.

United Kingdom. The first-time buyer's age has risen from 26 in the early 1990s to roughly 34 by the mid-2020s. In London, the median first-time buyer is now closer to 37. The price-to-income ratio for first-time buyers in the UK is roughly 7x in London and 4–5x in much of the rest of the country, against historical norms closer to 3x. A growing share of first-time buyers, by some estimates over 50% in London, receive financial help from family for the deposit. The "Bank of Mum and Dad" has become one of the largest mortgage lenders in the UK by transaction volume.

Australia. The Demographia International Housing Affordability survey has consistently rated Sydney as one of the world's least affordable major cities, with a price-to-income ratio above 13x in recent years. Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane are not far behind. First-home buyer rates have stagnated despite multiple rounds of government incentives, including the First Home Super Saver Scheme and various state-level grants.

Canada. Toronto and Vancouver routinely rank alongside Sydney as the world's most unaffordable major cities by income multiple. Federal foreign-buyer bans, taxes on vacant homes, and underwriting changes have produced marginal effects but have not closed the gap between median incomes and median home prices.

Germany. A different shape of the problem. Germany has historically had low homeownership rates by European standards (around 50%), with strong tenant protections that make long-term renting a viable alternative. However, since 2010, urban property prices in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, and Hamburg have roughly doubled, and rent caps in Berlin have produced legal challenges and reduced new construction. The young-adult homeownership question in Germany is increasingly less about whether to buy and more about whether sufficient rental supply will exist at all.

France. First-time buyer activity has fallen sharply since 2022 as interest rates rose. Paris has seen prices flat or declining since 2021, but from a level so high that affordability remains poor for under-35s.

Netherlands. Among the worst affordability situations in Europe, with chronic under-supply, very tight planning rules, and a surge in international demand particularly in Amsterdam. Strong tenant protections do not extend to the free-market rental sector, where young adults face both unaffordable purchase prices and unaffordable rents.

Spain and Italy. Lower median prices than northern Europe, but also significantly lower wages, and youth unemployment that remains elevated long after the 2008 crisis. Homeownership for under-35s has dropped meaningfully since the 2010s, partly compensated by intergenerational property transfers.

South Korea. The under-35 homeownership rate has collapsed since 2018. Seoul housing prices roughly doubled between 2017 and 2022, and the political response, restrictive lending rules, transaction taxes, supply commitments, has produced volatility but not affordability.

China. A different story again. Officially measured young-adult homeownership remains high by international standards, but largely because of intergenerational transfers, parents and grandparents typically contribute substantial down payments, and because of cultural pressure that ties marriage prospects to property ownership. The post-2021 property-sector crisis (Evergrande, Country Garden) has shaken the assumption that housing is a one-way bet on which the entire household balance sheet can rest.

Turkey. A market reshaped by inflation. Hard-currency-equivalent property prices in Istanbul rose substantially through 2021–2023 before stabilising, while local-currency mortgage costs were destroyed by interest-rate volatility. Young Turkish adults, like their counterparts in other high-inflation economies, have increasingly approached property as an inflation hedge for the household, but the entry price in major cities remains far out of reach for first-time buyers without family support.

The pattern across these markets is depressingly consistent. Housing has decoupled from wages in nearly every developed and middle-income economy with a major financial centre. The decoupling started in the late 1990s, accelerated after 2008, and got dramatically worse during the 2020–2022 monetary expansion. Subsequent rate increases reduced affordability further by raising borrowing costs without lowering prices proportionally.

The Structural Causes (Yes, Beyond Avocado Toast)

The underlying causes of the global housing affordability crisis are the same set of factors operating with different intensities in different countries:

Sustained under-construction. Post-2008, residential construction collapsed in most developed economies and never fully recovered. The UK, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. have all built fewer homes per capita over the past 15 years than during the prior 40. Cumulative under-supply now sits in the millions of units.

Restrictive land-use rules. Where construction is permitted, it is often constrained by zoning that protects existing low-density single-family neighbourhoods at the expense of new household formation. The political constituency for changing those rules, incumbent homeowners, has consistently outvoted the constituency for relaxing them, prospective buyers and renters.

Monetary policy. The post-2008 era of zero interest rates inflated asset prices generally and housing specifically. The 2022–2024 rate-hike cycle made borrowing more expensive without producing the price decline that would have offset it.

Investor demand. Single-family homes have become an institutional asset class, particularly in the U.S. and increasingly in Europe. Build-to-rent, single-family rental funds, and private-equity housing strategies all bid for the same stock that first-time buyers bid for, with deeper pockets and longer time horizons.

Foreign and migration-driven demand. In specific cities, international buyers and net migration add to the demand side without correspondingly expanding supply. This is a smaller factor than the supply problem in most markets but a politically visible one.

Wage stagnation in real terms. Even in countries where nominal wages have risen, real wage growth for under-35s has been weak. Housing costs as a percentage of income have risen across most income deciles, but most sharply for the lower and lower-middle income deciles where young adults disproportionately sit.

Student debt and other balance-sheet drag. Particularly in the U.S., UK, and Australia, young adults enter the market carrying education debt that materially affects their borrowing capacity for a mortgage.

None of these is "spending too much on coffee."

What's Actually Being Tried

Government responses across the world have clustered around a handful of approaches, with varying degrees of success.

Demand-side subsidies (first-home grants, stamp duty waivers, savings scheme top-ups). These have a long, frustrating track record of being capitalised into prices, the subsidy ends up in the seller's pocket rather than the buyer's. Useful at the margin for individual buyers; not a solution.

Foreign-buyer restrictions (Canada, New Zealand, Australia, parts of the U.S.). These have measurable effects on specific market segments but rarely move the broader affordability needle, because foreign buyers are usually not the primary marginal buyer outside ultra-prime segments.

Short-term rental regulation (New York City, Barcelona, Lisbon, Mexico City). More effective than foreign-buyer bans for restoring rental supply, with measurable effects in cities that enforce rules seriously. Does not address the purchase market directly.

Supply-side reform (zoning liberalisation, "missing middle" housing, faster planning approvals). Slow to take effect, politically difficult, but the only category of intervention that aligns with the diagnosis. Cities that have moved decisively, Auckland's 2016 zoning reform, parts of Minneapolis, and increasingly some U.S. states, have seen measurable supply responses. Most jurisdictions have not.

Build-to-rent and institutional rental (UK, Germany, increasingly the U.S.). Provides supply without creating homeowners. Improves rental conditions but does not directly answer the homeownership question.

Intergenerational transfer (informal). The largest de facto intervention in nearly every wealthy economy is parents giving children deposit money. This has the effect of locking the homeownership rate to the wealth distribution of the previous generation, which is to say, of making homeownership increasingly an inherited rather than earned condition.

What This Means for Cross-Border Investors and Cross-Border Buyers

The Gen Z affordability crisis is not just a story about a generation. It is a structural feature of nearly every major housing market that any cross-border investor needs to factor into both yield and exit assumptions.

Rental yields will be supported by a generation that cannot easily exit to ownership. This is the bull case for residential real estate as an asset class over the next 10–15 years, particularly in markets with strong tenant demographics and tight construction pipelines.

The political risk is asymmetric. Markets where young-adult homeownership has fallen most sharply are the markets where regulatory intervention is most likely. Foreign-buyer surcharges, golden-visa restrictions, short-term rental crackdowns, and rent controls are all more likely in countries where the under-35 demographic is most visibly priced out.

Geographic arbitrage is real but diminishing. For Gen Z buyers in unaffordable home markets, cross-border purchase can offer access to markets with better price-to-income ratios, typically in southern Europe, parts of Latin America, or smaller cities in Eastern Europe. The window for this strategy has been narrowing as the same destinations attract investment from multiple sending countries simultaneously.

The intergenerational wealth transfer is now a market-shaping force. An estimated $80–90 trillion in wealth will move from baby boomers to younger generations in major Western economies over the next 25 years. This will partially solve the Gen Z housing problem for those who inherit, while sharpening it for those who don't. Markets and platforms that serve cross-border family wealth transfer, including JanusHermes, are positioned at the intersection of this transfer and the housing-affordability problem.

The avocado-toast theory was wrong because it located the problem in the wrong place. The real explanation is structural, international, and likely to persist through at least the 2030s. Gen Z will eventually own homes, but later, more selectively, and disproportionately through inheritance and family support rather than through wages alone. That is a substantial change in how wealth, and the politics that go with wealth, is organised in the developed world.

For investors, the relevant question is not whether the affordability crisis will resolve. It is which markets will respond to it with serious supply reform, which will respond with restrictive demand-side measures, and which will simply continue to allow housing to function primarily as a store of wealth for the generation that already owns it.

The answers to those questions, more than interest rates, will determine which cross-border real estate strategies actually work over the next decade.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Gen Z actually buying fewer homes than previous generations?
At the same age, yes, though by a smaller margin than the headlines suggest. In the U.S., 32.6% of 27-year-old Gen Z Americans owned a home in 2024, compared with 38.4% of Gen Xers and 40.5% of baby boomers when they were 27. The gap is roughly 6–8 percentage points and has been stable for several years.

What's the main reason Gen Z can't afford homes?
A combination of structural under-construction since 2008, restrictive zoning, the post-2008 era of low interest rates that inflated asset prices, the 2022–2024 rate hikes that raised borrowing costs without proportionally lowering prices, and stagnant real wage growth for under-35s. Foreign buyers and short-term rentals are smaller contributors that vary heavily by city.

Which countries have the worst affordability for young buyers?
By price-to-income ratio, Australia (Sydney, Melbourne), Canada (Toronto, Vancouver), New Zealand (Auckland), the UK (London especially), the Netherlands (Amsterdam), and South Korea (Seoul) consistently rank among the worst. Specific U.S. metros, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, New York, Boston, are similarly stretched.

Are government interventions actually helping?
Demand-side subsidies tend to get capitalised into higher prices rather than helping buyers. Foreign-buyer bans have small effects outside ultra-prime segments. Short-term rental regulation can restore meaningful rental supply where seriously enforced. Supply-side zoning reform is the intervention most aligned with the diagnosis but is slow and politically difficult. Auckland and parts of Minneapolis are early examples of measurable success.

Will the situation improve when boomers transfer wealth to their children?
Partially. An estimated $80–90 trillion is expected to move from baby boomers to younger generations in major Western economies over the next 25 years. This will solve the homeownership problem for many Gen Z and millennials who inherit, while leaving those who don't inherit further behind. The aggregate effect is to make homeownership increasingly an inherited rather than earned condition.

Explore global real estate markets with data-driven insights and cross-border investment tools at JanusHermes. Compare property markets across 50+ countries, analyze Golden Visa programs, and make informed international investment decisions.

A note on the numbers: where no source is named, the market figures in this article (prices, yields, costs) are indicative estimates compiled from publicly available market data and industry reporting at the time of writing. Markets move and rules change, so treat them as a starting point and verify current figures with official sources before acting on them.