It’s no secret that millennials are buying homes at much lower rates than previous generations, especially in Santa Barbara, where housing prices have forced many born between 1981 and 1996 to remain as renters through much of their early adulthood. And according to a new study , Gen Z, the latest wave of young adults, will likely see the same struggles as their predecessors, spending nearly 30 percent of their incomes on rent by the age of 30.
The study was conducted by RentCafe, a nationwide apartment search website, which compared the incomes and housing costs for the two generations across 197 major cities as they navigated the ages of 22 through 29, with costs for each group adjusted to 2023 U.S. dollars.
According to the data, millennials in Santa Barbara spend an average of $184,000 on rent by the age of 30, accounting for 26 percent of their total income. Millennials who owned homes, on the other hand, spent more than $275,000 on housing in the same time span, a figure that equals about 40 percent of their expected income of $700,000.
