With rent prices constantly going up, fewer people are able to make the jump from renting to owning homes. More and more renters are finding that a big chunk of their income is going towards rent, which makes it tough to save money for a future down payment. Zillow’s latest report shows that less renters believe they’ll be able to buy a home within the next year, which could slow down the recovery of the U.S. housing market.
This decade is expected to see the biggest growth in the rental market, mostly because millennials are starting their careers. According to researchers from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, while these rent hikes are good for landlords, they mean that many workers are spending a huge portion of their earnings on rent. In fact, rent increases in 2014 were double the rate of inflation.