8 Gen Z’ers Reveal How They Bought Their First Home Before Turning 30

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Photo: Meghan Marin

These days, homeownership is no easy feat; what once was a common milestone for generations of adults now feels unfathomable for Gen Z and millennials. Sky-high prices, inflated interest rates, and a decline in “starter” homes on the market pose high barriers to entry for many first-time buyers.

According to the Urban Institute, the homeownership rate for young adults, or those under 35, declined from 45% in 1990 to 39% in 2022. And per the US Census, college graduates ages 25 to 29 experienced the greatest losses in homeownership rates between 2004 and 2019.

But Gen Z, born roughly between 1997 and 2012, has seen higher homeownership rates than both millennials and Gen X’ers when they were the same age. A recent Redfin study notes that the rate for 24-year-old Gen Z’ers is currently 27.8%, compared to 24.5% when millennials were 24, and 23.5% for Gen X’ers at that age.

So, how exactly is this younger demographic making it happen? Ahead, eight Gen Z’ers reveal the strategies they used to buy their first homes before hitting their thirties.

Live with your partner’s parents to save for a down payment

When Victoria Bellucci and her future fiancé decided they wanted to live together, they’d already gotten on the same page about one day buying property. To them, it seemed, there were two options: continue renting in New York City while trying to save for a down payment, or move in with Bellucci’s future in-laws on Long Island to save that money in half the time. “We decided to live with his parents, which really made it possible to reach our goal so much faster,” Bellucci says.

Over the next year and a half, the couple saved as much as they could from their combined incomes, aiming to set aside 50% of each paycheck, plus any extra funds whenever possible. “I completely understand that saving half of your paycheck isn’t realistic for most people, but for us, not having to pay rent and cutting back in other areas made it possible,” Bellucci adds.

As she further explains, they kept their expenses low by sacrificing things like going out to dinner, traveling, and spending on the “fun” stuff—clothes for her, golf for him. Their period of frugality paid off: At age 28, Bellucci and her fiancé purchased a five-bedroom house built in the 1950s in Babylon, New York.

Move far outside the city to find a place you can afford

As a college graduate living in Boston, Justin Lopilato was tired of paying rent. He was drawn to the idea of “house hacking,” or buying a multi-family property, living in it for a time, and then using it for rental income. But when he sat down with his agent, Dana Bull, she drew a clear line between his expectations and the state of the market. “I wanted to be in the Cambridge area and that wasn’t really realistic,” Lopilato says.

He considered buying a condo, though it wasn’t a solution that suited his budget. “I started going out of the city more, but with rates going up, I couldn’t afford anything pretty much anywhere in Massachusetts,” Lopilato says. So, he decided to live with his parents for six months to save money and recalibrate. Then, a higher-paying job opportunity arose in New Hampshire. Lopilato saw affordable rents and home prices in the Nashua area and decided to take the leap.

Soon after, using a down payment gift from his parents, the 24-year-old bought a duplex there with an FHA loan. He splits the cost of the mortgage with his girlfriend, rents out the other unit, and also rents out a few parking spots in the property’s sizable lot. “My expectations just constantly kept having to shift,” Lopilato says of his years-long homebuying journey. “And even then, I still couldn’t have done it myself.”

Consider having your parent apply for the mortgage instead

Aaliyah Kissick got her start as a teen entrepreneur. When she was 17, she opened a boutique out of her mom’s garage, and quickly scaled it into a business with two brick-and-mortar stores. By the time she was 20 years old, Kissick decided it’d be wise to buy property. “No mortgage company would allow me to take out a loan by myself, so my mom did it in her name,” she explains. “But I made more than enough to cover the mortgage and my name is on the deed.”

According to Kissick, a big part of what made homeownership possible at such a young age was buying in an affordable area: Springfield, Illinois. Now, as a 24-year-old financial literacy advocate, she rents with her husband while her mother and grandmother live in the home she bought. “I’ll use it as a rental property once they decide to leave,” Kissick says.

Buy property as a group to defray the costs of homeownership

Though they went to the same high school, it wasn’t until a few years later that friends Stefan Gollisz, Cole Flynn, and Scott McKinnon bonded over their interest in real estate investing. They all wanted to buy property sooner rather than later, but weren’t certain they could swing it.

To make buying their first home possible between the ages of 23 and 24, they turned to Nestment, a service that advises people on how they can co-own properties with friends and family. With the help of their advisor, they pooled their savings and investments and formed a joint LLC to buy a three-bedroom, three-bathroom town house in Tampa, Florida.

“I don’t believe that we would have been able to purchase a home individually for some years to come,” Gollisz says. “We were still only just out of college, had been in the workforce for less than three years, and therefore hadn’t accumulated enough to do it. That’s why co-buying was extremely attractive to us—we wanted to start investing in real estate without having to wait seven to 10 years down the road.”

Work with a financial planner to optimize your savings

Both Liv Dellanno and her fiancée grew up on the East Coast. After renting in Chicago together, they realized it would make sense to buy there rather than back home, simply because of housing costs. “After seeing how much properties cost in Chicago, we started looking in Evanston—ten minutes up the road from our old [Chicago] apartment—and eventually found we could get much more with our budget,” Dellano says.

The couple sat down with financial planners Val Caldwell and Krys Shaw to figure out exactly how much they’d need to put away every month to reach their goal. In all, it took them about six years to save for their down payment. They set up auto-deposits into a savings account and used an Acorns account to do micro-investing, “My fiancée had a gap year between graduating college and moving to Chicago,” Dellano adds. “She had the chance to put everything she made while working that year away, so she had a leg up on saving.”

At 28 years old, Dellanno and her partner bought their first home in Evanston, Illinois. “I’m very thankful to have been raised by a saver—and engaged to one,” she says. “My mom always told me, ‘It’s not what you make. It’s what you keep,’ so I’ve always been mindful about putting money away.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest