Which cities are millennials absolutely loving right now?

LendingTree study finds out

By Steve Randall

19 Dec 2018

Where are millennials buying homes right now? This is something LendingTree has investigated using mortgage requests on its site for the first 11 months of 2018.

It found that almost 1 in 4 mortgage requests nationwide were from millennials with those in Salt Lake City (51% of total purchase requests), Minneapolis and Pittsburgh (48% each) were more likely to be pursuing homeownership than any of the nation's other 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Tampa, Las Vegas, and Miami had the smallest share of purchase mortgage requests from under 35s, at around a third of total requests.

San Francisco, San Jose, Calif. and New York are where millennials wait the longest to buy homes with an average age of 29.6 years old. This compares with an average of 28.7 years old across the remaining 47 largest metros in the US.

San Jose, Calif., San Francisco and New York are the places where millennials had the highest average credit scores (704 or more) while the average credit score for millennial homebuyers across the 50 largest MSAs in the country was 656.

50 Largest Metros Ranked by Millennial Homebuying Popularity
Rank	Metro	Population 2017	% of purchase requests from (<35)	Average age of buyers (<35)
1	Salt Lake City	1,203,105	51%	28
2	Minneapolis	3,600,618	48%	28.5
3	Pittsburgh	2,333,367	48%	28.4
4	Buffalo, N.Y.	1,136,856	46%	28.4
5	Denver	2,888,227	45%	28.9
6	St. Louis	2,807,338	45%	28.5
7	Kansas City, Mo.	2,128,912	45%	28.5
8	Columbus, Ohio	2,078,725	44%	28.4
9	Rochester, N.Y.	1,077,948	44%	28.4
10	Cincinnati	2,179,082	43%	28.2
11	Milwaukee	1,576,236	43%	28.7
12	Indianapolis	2,028,614	43%	28.2
13	Detroit	4,313,002	43%	28.3
14	Cleveland	2,058,844	43%	28.4
15	San Jose, Calif.	1,998,463	43%	29.6
16	Seattle	3,867,046	43%	29
17	Boston	4,836,531	42%	29
18	Hartford, Conn.	1,210,259	42%	28.7
19	Oklahoma City	1,383,737	42%	28.2
20	Providence, R.I.	1,621,122	42%	28.7
21	Nashville, Tenn.	1,903,045	42%	28.4
22	Philadelphia	6,096,120	42%	28.9
23	Chicago	9,533,040	42%	28.9
24	Louisville, Ky.	1,293,953	41%	28.2
25	Birmingham, Ala.	1,149,807	40%	28.4
26	Washington	6,216,589	40%	29.2
27	Richmond, Va.	1,294,204	40%	28.8
28	Baltimore	2,808,175	40%	29
29	Houston	6,892,427	39%	28.8
30	Austin, Texas	2,115,827	39%	28.9
31	Dallas	7,399,662	39%	28.8
32	San Francisco	4,727,357	39%	29.8
33	New Orleans	1,275,762	39%	28.8
34	Virginia Beach, Va.	1,725,246	38%	28.6
35	Charlotte, N.C.	2,525,305	38%	28.7
36	Portland, Ore.	2,453,168	38%	28.7
37	Raleigh, N.C.	1,335,079	38%	28.8
38	Phoenix	4,737,270	37%	28.4
39	Memphis, Tenn.	1,348,260	37%	28.9
40	Los Angeles	13,353,907	37%	29.3
41	Atlanta	5,884,736	37%	28.9
42	Riverside, Calif.	4,580,670	37%	28.9
43	New York	20,320,876	37%	29.4
44	Jacksonville, Fla.	1,504,980	36%	28.7
45	Sacramento, Calif.	2,324,884	35%	29.1
46	San Diego	3,337,685	35%	29.2
47	Orlando, Fla.	2,509,831	34%	28.7
48	Miami	6,158,824	32%	29.1
49	Las Vegas	2,204,079	31%	28.8
50	Tampa, Fla.	3,091,399	30%	28.7