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A new poll claims to show Millennials would not relish the chance to live near their parents, and a majority of Americans do not want to live with their adult children, regardless of a small but growing trend in multigenerational “cohousing” around the country.
According to respondents of an online survey by Ally Home, the direct-to-consumer mortgage arm of Ally Bank, a little distance between families goes a long way. More than half of the 2,041 people surveyed (57 percent) say there should be at least some driving distance between where their parents and/or in-laws live and where they live. An even greater percentage of Gen Z (63 percent) and Millennial consumers (62 percent) felt some distance was important. Specifically, most respondents (27 percent) homed in on 15 to 45 minutes as the ideal distance range.
In fact, more than one-third of respondents (37 percent) agree that family should not live close enough to just pop in and say hi. An even greater percentage of Millennials (42 percent) don’t like the idea of the unannounced pop-in.
At the same time many respondents – particularly Millennials – were anxious about home prices forcing relatives to live with them, or vice versa. Millennials worry more than any other age group that, at some point, they will have their adult children, their parents or in-laws living with them (33 percent versus 21 percent of the general population).
“We’re deep into the home buying season, and at Ally Home, we see firsthand how excited consumers are to find and then be able to afford the home of their dreams,” Ally Home Mortgage Executive Glenn Brunker said in a statement. “But as we go through that homebuying journey with them, it’s clear there’s more than just the house and yard that go into their decision-making. Consumers need to think through things like the neighborhood, school system, access to good hospitals, and just how near (or far) they prefer to be to family.”
This online survey was conducted by Regina Corso Consulting on behalf of Ally Financial between April 17 and 22, 2019 among 2,041 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older. Figures for age, gender, education, income, employment and region were weighted to being them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated.
