A new RentCafe analysis<\/a> of over 100 metro areas found millennial homeownership jumped 74% in five years, rising to 12.41 million in 2023. <\/p>\nMeanwhile, the number of millennial renter households grew far more slowly \u2014 up 5.1% \u2014 reaching 12.57 million.<\/p>\n
Rentcafe graph showing growth in millennial homeownership versus renting (Rentcafe)What it means for Central Florida<\/p>\n
Three metros in the Central Florida area ranked near the top nationally for growth in millennial homeowners:<\/p>\n
Lakeland:\u00a0+140.7%\u00a0growth in millennial owner households from 2018 to 2023 (No. 2 nationally)<\/p>\n
Palm Bay: +111.9% (No. 6)<\/p>\n
Deltona:\u00a0+108.5%\u00a0(No. 9)<\/p>\n
RentCafe\u2019s takeaway: Many of the fastest-growing millennial homebuying markets are mid-size Florida metros where incomes for Gen Y workers have been rising while price increases remain more manageable than in the country\u2019s most expensive markets.<\/p>\n
Why Florida is showing such big gains<\/p>\n
RentCafe points to a mix of forces pushing and pulling millennial buyers toward places like Lakeland and Deltona:<\/p>\n
Relative affordability\u00a0compared with major coastal markets<\/p>\n
Lifestyle and quality-of-life appeal\u00a0in \u201csunny\u201d regions<\/p>\n
Pandemic-era migration and remote work flexibility, which let some households move away from dense, high-cost city centers<\/p>\n
Florida also stood out in rental growth: Orlando posted the largest increase in millennial renters among the metros studied, with renter households up 34%.<\/p>\n
The bigger picture<\/p>\n
Across the country, millennials have now reached a near balance between owning and renting, and in most places, owning is now ahead.<\/p>\n
Rentcafe map of where millennials are owning and renting (Rentcafe)<\/p>\n
In fact, RentCafe found that over 80 metros analyzed have more millennial homeowners than renters \u2014 a sign that the generation\u2019s long-delayed move into homeownership is spreading beyond just a few markets.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the full ranking of Florida metros where millennial homeownership increased is as follows:<\/p>\n
RankMetroMillennial owner households (2023)5-Year Change (%)1North Port35,144166%2Lakeland47,972140.7%3Jacksonville105,156125.9%6Palm Bay32,530111.9%9Deltona36,715108.5%13Orlando143,70597.6%14Miami248,58397.5%25Tampa169,98786.9%26Cape Coral32,61386.8%53Pensacola32,58371.4%<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Millennials aren\u2019t just renting longer \u2014 they\u2019re increasingly buying homes, and Central Florida is among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[315,209,7293,6919,28,785,1644,116,7154,123,2159,30369,139,141,140,9036,8987,1911,135,2261],"class_list":["post-363267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-brevard-county","tag-cape-coral","tag-deltona","tag-features","tag-florida","tag-florida-ranked","tag-housing","tag-jacksonville","tag-lakeland","tag-miami","tag-money","tag-north-port","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-palm-bay","tag-pensacola","tag-polk-county","tag-tampa","tag-volusia-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363267","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=363267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}