A growing number of employed people in the D.C. region live with their parents, while realizing they may never be able to afford to buy a home of their own nearby, according to a new report from real estate listings firm Bright MLS.
The study looks at “shadow homebuyers” — working adults between the ages of 25 and 39 — who are living in their parents’ home. Researchers coined the term to describe the group, assuming many were waiting in the shadows and saving up to purchase their own homes, but Bright MLS said the widening divide between incomes and home prices complicates the issue.
“This generation may be more stuck than strategic, with homeownership a distant prospect,” Bright MLS said in its report.
“A lot of these folks are living with their parents, not thinking, ‘I’ll save money and buy a house next year,’ but because they really don’t see an end in sight for being able to afford the high cost of living here,” Axios D.C. reporter Mimi Montgomery said in an interview with WTOP’s Nick Iannelli.
The report found 4.9% of households in the region include a shadow buyer — the 10th-highest share in the nation.
“The highest concentration of these folks are out in the suburbs, where there are larger homes where folks can have space to live with family,” Montgomery said.
Prince George’s County, Maryland, has the mid-Atlantic’s highest share of households with a shadow buyer, at 8%. In Prince William County, Virginia, the share is 7.1%
“Montgomery County is 5.1%, and then when you get closer to the city — to Arlington, Alexandria and to D.C. itself — the numbers really start to drop because, according to Bright, there are less of these larger single family homes where folks can live with their family members,” Montgomery said.
According to the Bright report, “The median wage of shadow buyers in the area is $41,000, but they would need an income of $180,000 to buy a median-priced home here, so a huge gap,” Montgomery said.
That gap has would-be buyers in the D.C. area looking at more affordable areas nearby such as Baltimore, Columbia or Towson, Maryland, according to separate Realtor.com report. Others are considering relocating to markets with a lower cost of living, including Pittsburgh or Cleveland.
Multigenerational living among young adults has deep historical roots. Nearly half of young adults in their 20s lived at home in 1940, but that changed after World War II, with the rapid construction of affordable suburban homes.
“One of the biggest helps to this problem would be to have more affordable housing and more in-between housing, not necessarily buying a big single-family home,” Montgomery said. “Something more like a townhome or small starter home that’s a bit easier for a first-time buyer to get into.”
WTOP’s Nick Ianelli contributed to this report.
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