In Milwaukee, Francisco Vazquez, 27, recently achieved what feels out of reach for so many in America today, especially young people: He bought a cute yellow three-bedroom home with a basement, garage and yard.
Like many a proud owner, he spent hours this spring fixing it up before moving in, starting with tearing out the carpet.
"I sanded down all the hardwood floors, stained them again. I was adding polyurethane today. It's looking really nice," he said.
Vazquez is part of a small but growing share of Gen Zers managing to buy a home despite historically unaffordable prices, and when the average age of first-time buyers has climbed to 40. They are outpacing millennials, many of whom also struggled to buy at the same age. They're less likely to use help from parents and far more likely to be single buyers, especially women.
"Gen Zers seem to have learned from millennials," said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, which tracks buying trends. She also credits their use of social media for financial planning. "They're embracing the knowledge that is at hand."
A job in fast food and an aggressive savings plan
Vazquez changed careers to make homeownership happen. He'd majored in conservation science, on a scholarship with no student loans, then moved to Texas to work in that field. First he helped rescue alligators and place them in a sanctuary, then got a job at a zoo.
He loves animals and said the jobs were "super fun." But the pay was so low he started questioning the value of his college degree.
"I wasn't going to be able to support a wife, let alone kids, or buy a home," he said.
Making it financially is important to Vazquez. Growing up, his parents didn't have much and relied on government assistance. So he moved back home to Wisconsin thinking he'd become an electrician, but stumbled on a job posting to help manage a fast food restaurant. It turned out to have great pay and benefits. He got the job and he's been promoted twice.
For two years, one living with his parents and one renting on his own, he saved aggressively.
"Most of my paycheck, probably like 70%, [went] into just a broad index stock," he said.
The biggest challenge to his spartan spending plan was when he started dating the woman he would later marry, who felt they should spend a bit more to have fun while they're young. "She's definitely helped me balance in that regard," he said.
Still, Vazquez was able to build up a whopping $72,000 in savings in just over two years. Milwaukee is also among a number of smaller, affordable cities where Gen Z is more likely to buy. At $220,000, his home was nearly half the national median price.
By putting down a large down payment, Vazquez – not yet 30 – has a 15-year fixed rate mortgage, and an ambitious plan for the future.
"My biggest goal at the moment is just to retire early," he said. "So buying a home helps me buy myself more freedom in general."
More than a third of Gen Z buyers are single women
The rise in the youngest homeowners is noteworthy because of the odds stacked against them.
A massive housing shortage has pushed prices to record high unaffordability for both renters and owners. Rising home costs have far outpaced paychecks. Lower cost starter homes have disappeared in many markets, while most new construction is geared to the higher end.
People in their 20s remain a sliver of buyers overall, but they're growing. The National Association of Realtors found last year 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before. It counts buyers 18-26, although other definitions of the generation include those a couple years older.
Overall, Gen Z homebuyers had an average household income of $76,000 dollars, according to the Realtors association. And they are financially savvy.
"They're taking advantage of government [down-payment assistance] programs at higher rates than all other generations," said NAR economist Lautz. "They seem to be a little more reticent when it comes to student loan debt, which has historically been one of the biggest hurdles for millennials to enter into homeownership."
While 16% of Gen Z buyers did get a gift or loan from parents, that's lower than for young millennials, and less than the traditional average of 25% of all ages who use the bank of mom and dad. Instead, Gen Zers are more likely to tap a 401K, which is possible because they're saving for retirement earlier than the previous generation.
Another difference: The share of single Gen Z buyers is double that of millennials at the same age.
"I asked around the office to try and understand what's happening here and I was reminded, COVID," Lautz said. "So I think perhaps delays in getting marriage started, and partners started, could be one of the things going on here for these young adults."
Strikingly, 35% of buyers in their 20s were single women, the highest share among all generations.
"It's really amazing if you look back," said Sue Meitner, who specializes in helping women buy homes and is president of Centennial Lending Group in Pennsylvania. "Women weren't even allowed to own a house until not too long ago."
They got the legal right in 1974, but even today she finds many young women don't believe they can buy a home on their own. Meitner encourages them to keep saving, ask for a raise or take on a side hustle.
"We don't ever want to say no," she said. "We always want to say maybe later, like, what can we do to get your income higher?"
Friends find it "crazy" that she owns a home
Pittsburgh is another popular city for young buyers, although 25-year-old Joanna Belechak does not have many close friends who are also homeowners. That can feel daunting when there's a strange noise inside or something breaks down.
"I Google a lot to try to find the answers where I can," she laughs.
But owning her beige brick townhouse solo also feels "powerful," and she's grateful that her parents helped to make it happen.
She was able to save up by living at home while she worked during college. A paid internship led to her current job in marketing, and after graduation she stayed rent-free for 18 months in a townhouse her parents owned. They also contributed to the down payment when she bought her own place more than two years ago.
"I'm the only one on the mortgage and I'm taking care of the mortgage, so it's in my hands to figure out the rest of homeowning," she said.
Belechak found it a little scary to shift from saving up money to spending it for the down payment. She's adjusted her budget, but occasionally dips into savings to cover an unexpected household expense.
Her Gen Z friends renting in far more expensive cities find it "crazy" that she actually bought a house.
"I have a friend in Raleigh [N.C.] where it's a little bit more feasible," she said. "But the New Yorks and the Bostons and the Chicagos of the world, it seems like a pipe dream."
They're starting to ask how she managed to buy, and she figures some may end up back in Pittsburgh. But even here, the market was tough when Belechak bought. And since then, she feels like job security and the overall economy has gotten worse.
"The cost of living in general is just so high," she said. "I don't know if I would have attempted it now."
That makes her feel all the more lucky that she was able to buy a home when she did, with so many in her generation priced out.
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