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A subdivision of homes on Culebra Road outside Loop 1604 on the far West Side is pictured.\u00a0Kadine Powell and her husband purchased a new-build home on the far West Side of San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Antonio Express-News file photo<\/p>\n
For\u00a0Kadine Powell, the barrier to buying her first home wasn\u2019t eligibility. It was the commitment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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As a veteran living in San Antonio, the 40-year-old knew she could use her VA loan benefits<\/a> to buy a first home. What she wasn\u2019t sure about was everything that came after: the permanence, the obligation and the leap from renting into something far more binding.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI was always afraid because I didn\u2019t want the responsibility of a home,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve lived in amazing homes that I pay people rent for, and whenever something breaks, I can call them up, and I don\u2019t have to worry about it. Whenever it comes time for me to leave that place, I can just up and leave.\u201d<\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0Texas welcomes nearly 400K millennials from out-of-state in 2023, study shows<\/a><\/p>\n Powell is a New York native, but moved to San Antonio two years ago for her job as a public health adviser for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While she had her doubts, she chose to buy her first home here in 2024 because it was military-friendly and more affordable than her home state.\u00a0<\/p>\n San Antonio Express News Logo<\/p>\n Make us a Preferred Source on Google to see more of us when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n She\u2019s part of the herd of millennials settling down in San Antonio with their first home purchase. From 2018 to 2023, the Alamo City saw a 105.8% increase in millennial homebuyers, ranking No. 10 on RentCafe\u2019s list<\/a> of metro areas with the fastest growth in millennial homeownership.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cYou get a lot more home for your money compared to places like New York, where homes are much smaller and expensive,\u201d Powell said. \u201cI thought if I was going to buy a home, San Antonio was the right choice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n San Antonio trailed behind Austin, ranked No. 7 on the list with a 110.9% increase over five years. In 2023, San Antonio had 153,099 millennial homebuyers, while Austin had 176,981.<\/p>\n Dallas and El Paso came in at No. 15 and 16 on the list, respectively. The report\u2019s 2023 data was the most recent available.<\/p>\n Attracting millennial buyers<\/p>\n Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996 and also known as Generation Y, range from 30 to 45 years old.\u00a0The National Association of Realtors reported<\/a> in November last year that the median age for first-time homebuyers climbed to an all-time high of 40 years old.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n RentCafe reported that more millennials are settling down in larger metros, like San Antonio and Austin, because there\u2019s more diversity in job opportunities and access to \u201ca variety of neighborhoods with different price points,\u201d even if they\u2019re located outside of the urban core.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kadine Powell and her husband, Seth Kennedy, purchased a new-build home on San Antonio\u2019s far West Side.<\/p>\n Kadine Powell Kadine Powell, a military veteran, purchased her home using her VA benefits.<\/p>\n Kadine Powell<\/p>\n Powell and her husband, Seth Kennedy, found their first home on San Antonio\u2019s far West Side in the Alamo Ranch neighborhood. They looked at eight different residences throughout the city and put offers on three before ultimately landing on the right one.\u00a0<\/p>\n Because she wasn\u2019t ready for too much responsibility, Powell wanted a newer home with at least three bedrooms in a military-friendly area. The VA benefits allowed her to have a max budget of $420,000. She eventually plans to move to another state and hopes to rent it out to a fellow veteran or active service member.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n MORE HOUSING NEWS:\u00a0San Antonio home sales post biggest gain since October as market gains momentum<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI never got to the point where I thought it was the right time,\u201d Powell said. \u201cWhat gave me the confidence was my husband convincing me that we should take advantage of the VA benefit, and if we don\u2019t, we\u2019re not giving ourselves the best opportunity to build generational wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n While Powell was able to take advantage of the no-down-payment and competitively low interest rates offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a>, San Antonio is also one of several cities that provide government assistance to first-time homebuyers. The city lends between $1,000 and $15,000 with no interest to eligible buyers for down payments or additional homebuying costs through its Homeownership Incentive Programs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most of Powell\u2019s millennial friends who own homes are active-duty military members or veterans. Her other friends in New York are largely renting, are living with family or got help from a family member to purchase a home.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of people get stuck on that 20% down with conventional home loans, so if you want to buy a $350,000 home in San Antonio, you need $70,000, and that takes time to save that much,\u201d she said. \u201cIn New York, my mom lives in an $800,000 home that is a third the size of mine, but if someone wanted to buy that, they would need to put down $160,000. People just aren\u2019t aware of other opportunities to own a home without that down payment.\u201d<\/p>\n Renting vs. buying<\/p>\n While millennials feel the pressure to purchase a home as they get older, many are still opting to rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, millennials made up 53.3% of the rental market share in Austin and 47.7% in San Antonio, according to RentCafe. Austin ranked No. 7 on the list of the top metro areas for growth in millennial\u00a0renters, while the Alamo City ranked No. 33.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Austin sees plenty of transplants moving in and out of the city for professional opportunities, especially in the volatile tech industry, and has established itself as a rental hub. Homeownership is also much more expensive and less attainable than it is in San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n RELATED: Homeownership in San Antonio costs more than renting, but it\u2019s better off than Austin, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n A recent study from Construction Coverage<\/a>, a data firm for the homebuilder industry, found that in San Antonio, the monthly cost of owning a home<\/a> is nearly 25% higher than renting. In Austin, the gap is significantly wider: Monthly mortgage payments are 117% higher than rent, making homeownership feel almost out of reach for renters hoping to make the transition. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Powell has yet to get over her fear of homeownership responsibility, even after living in her house for two years. Because she plans to move to another state, she doesn\u2019t see herself purchasing another home anytime soon, \u201cunless I plan to die in it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOwning a home is not a get-rich-quick scheme,\u201d Powell added. \u201cEverything that comes with the home is on you. Every filter that needs changing, every faucet that leaks, every air conditioner that breaks, you have to fix it. So you really have to decide where you are in life, and if you can financially and emotionally handle it before making this decision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A subdivision of homes on Culebra Road outside Loop 1604 on the far West Side is pictured.\u00a0Kadine Powell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,933],"class_list":["post-385042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austinlatest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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