Clever Offers<\/a> found 40% say they are desperate to buy a home this year, despite widespread financial barriers. Nearly 97% reported at least one obstacle to homeownership, most of them tied to cost.<\/p>\nAmong the top barriers:<\/p>\n
46% said homes are too expensive<\/p>\n
40% cited high interest rates<\/p>\n
34% said saving for a down payment is a challenge<\/p>\n
For some millennials, timing made all the difference.<\/p>\n
Mariah Jones, 33, recently became a homeowner after selling her previous house at the height of the market more than two years ago, a move she says allowed her to buy again before affordability worsened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of was at the right place at the right time,\u201d Jones said. \u201cSo I was able to get into this house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said owning a home had always been a goal, but many of her peers have been priced out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of friends who are not able to buy a home because the process is just really, it\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s too expensive,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then I have some friends who their families have helped them to get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report echoes that experience. Two-thirds of millennials say they delayed home-buying plans by at least three years due to current market conditions, including high prices and borrowing costs .<\/p>\n
Others are still pushing forward but only after years of sacrifice.<\/p>\n
Randell Nugent said it took about six years of planning and saving to reach the point where he could buy a home. He is now purchasing a house just steps away from where he has rented in Riverside for the past six years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of set the goal to buy a house about five years ago. COVID really threw a wrench in that plan,\u201d Nugent said.<\/p>\n
For Nugent, affordability came down to the monthly payment and whether he could save enough upfront to feel financially secure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to save enough to be able to put down enough to where I felt comfortable having that,\u201d Nugent said.<\/p>\n
He said getting there required lifestyle changes, including cutting back on eating out, cooking at home and taking on additional work to funnel money into savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll that money I just put right into savings,\u201d Nugent said. \u201cJust had to be smart with my money and not spend too frivolously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite those efforts, Nugent believes his generation faces steeper challenges than those before it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prices of the homes – I don\u2019t think wages aren\u2019t necessarily where they were [for our parents]in relevance to what housing or anything costs,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, the rising cost of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, 72% of millennials still believe homeownership is part of the American dream, even as three out of four say the average millennial cannot afford a home today.<\/p>\n
For Jones, the payoff is worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy having something that belongs to me,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s my home, and I can make all the shots and all the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Millennials hoping to buy a home in 2026 say affordability pressures are intensifying, with many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15852,15851,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-145463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-addressing-a4dability","tag-addressing-affordability","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}