Some millennial Austinites already dread being locked in as renters for the rest of their lives. Now a new SmartAsset housing study has unearthed a surprising statistic that backs that fear up: Only 3.26 percent of Austin's millennial population used conventional mortgages to buy homes in the metro area in 2024.

The report, "Where Millennials Are Buying Homes – 2025 Study," analyzed mortgage origination data across 41 of the largest U.S. metros, ranking them based on the percentage of local people aged 25-44 who purchased a home in 2024. As a note, the study only observed conventional mortgages and not FHA (which are largely targeted to first-time homebuyers), USDA, or VA loans.

The study found Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos had the 12th highest number of millennial homebuyers in the U.S. last year, with 27,196 mortgages originated in the region. In last year's study, using data from 2022, the metro area came in 10th.

The median property value of an Austin-area home purchased by a millennial in 2024 came out to $445,000, and the median income of a millennial homeowner was $149,000, according to the report.

Additionally, Austin's small share of local millennials who bought homes in the metro earned it a No. 22 ranking in SmartAsset's overall list of U.S. metro areas with the highest percentage of millennials who purchased homes last year.

For additional context, the No. 1-ranking metro was Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina with 4.5 percent of local millennials securing a mortgage last year. However, that percentage only represented 19,735 mortgages originated in 2024.

Nationwide, more millennials bought homes in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands than in any other U.S. metro, amounting to nearly 62,000 originated mortgages.

"This was the highest raw number of new Millennial homeowners nationwide, outranking metros like New York City and Los Angeles, which have much larger total populations," the report's author wrote.

SmartAsset said U.S. metros with a high rate of millennial homebuyers may show desirability within the area's job market, housing market, and its local economy.

"In some places, 1 in every 25 residents between the ages of 25 and 44 purchased a home with a conventional mortgage just in 2024 alone," the study said. "In other major metros, less than 1 in 100 Millennial-aged residents last year. This disparity can cause divergent implications for local infrastructure, politics, and business demand among different metros."

Here's how many mortgages that were secured by millennials in Texas' other major metros in 2024:

• Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands – 61,826 mortgages
• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington – 55,732 mortgages
• San Antonio-New Braunfels – 26,337 mortgages