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These U.S. cities have the largest concentration of Gen Z homebuyers

Younger buyers are reshaping the housing market in unexpected cities. LendingTree found where Gen Z mortgage requests surged most

Steven Van Elk / Unsplash

A first-time buyer used to rent through their twenties, save for a few years, then buy once income caught up with home prices. That timeline has stretched later into adulthood for the newest generation of buyers. Mortgage rates hovering near seven percent, entry-level home prices that outpaced wage growth through most of the past decade, and student debt that delayed saving all pushed the typical first-time buyer further into their thirties. Young adults are still finding their way into mortgage applications, just not evenly across the map. In some cities, the youngest generation of buyers accounts for roughly one in four mortgage requests. In others, it's closer to one in ten.

A mortgage payment scales with the price of the home, and home prices vary enormously from one city to the next, so the income and credit needed to qualify vary just as much. Younger buyers also tend to carry thinner financial cushions than the generations ahead of them. Nationally, buyers born after 1996 are putting down an average of $44,966 and borrowing roughly $274,794, tens of thousands of dollars less than buyers in their thirties and forties typically put down and borrow. Older Americans who locked in low mortgage rates years ago have also been reluctant to sell and take on a new loan at today's higher rates, leaving more room in some markets for first-time buyers to step in. Where housing costs stay modest and local incomes keep pace, that opening gets filled fastest.

LendingTree analyzed mortgage purchase requests submitted through its platform in 2025, isolating the share that came from adults ages 18 to 28, and sorted the country's 50 largest cities by how large that share was. The data breaks down each city's average credit score, down payment, and loan amount for these buyers, along with how much their presence has grown or shrunk since 2024. Affordability, not ambition, is deciding where the next generation of homeowners gets its start.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minn., has the largest concentration of Gen Z homebuyers of any city LendingTree tracked. Adults ages 18 to 28 made up 26.4% of the mortgage purchase requests submitted there in 2025, up from 23.6% a year earlier. Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, points to income as the biggest driver behind that share. Minneapolis pairs relatively affordable housing costs with some of the stronger paychecks among the cities where young buyers are most active, a combination that widens who can realistically qualify for a mortgage. Gen Z buyers in Minneapolis also carry an average credit score of 690, well above the national Gen Z average of 674. Schulz notes that Minnesota residents generally carry stronger credit profiles, which makes it easier for young buyers there to close on a loan rather than just qualify for one on paper.

Gen Z buyers in Minneapolis put down an average of $46,849 and take out loans averaging $288,483, both above the national Gen Z figures of $44,966 and $274,794 despite the city's relative affordability. Buyers there aren't stretching to the loan balances seen in pricier coastal cities, but they're bringing more money to the table than most of their peers elsewhere. Minneapolis added 2.7 percentage points of Gen Z share between 2024 and 2025, an 11.5% increase, as older homeowners hold onto mortgages locked in at lower rates and leave more of the available inventory to a generation just beginning to build equity.

Minneapolis's gains also mirror what's happening nationally, just at a larger scale. Gen Z's overall share of mortgage requests climbed from 18.1% to 19.9% between 2024 and 2025, a trend Schulz ties partly to older homeowners staying put rather than trading a low mortgage rate for a higher one. Minneapolis has ridden that wave further than most cities, and the........

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