u/hometapteam

We recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. homeowners to learn how they actually feel about owning a home — not as the concept, but as a lived reality. Since this community is mostly millennials, one finding stood out that we think a lot of you will relate to (and/or rage about):

61.2% of homeowners now agree that the wealth gap is so large that parental help has gone from a bonus to a requirement for buying a home.

And the wild part? That belief is shared — and that number is nearly identical — across every generation:

• Millennials: 62.2%
• Gen X: 63.1%
• Baby boomers: 62.5%

Basically everyone agrees the bar exists. The problem is clearing it — because only 39.7% of homeowners say they actually have the resources to help their kids buy a home. The other 60.3% don't.

So we've reached a strange consensus: parental help is the new price of entry… but most parents can't pay it.

A few other hard-hitting survey takeaways for the millennial crowd:

• Only 18.5% of homeowners say homeownership has fully delivered on its promise as a cornerstone of the American Dream. A combined 36.4% say it's largely or completely fallen short.
• When asked to describe the American Dream in one word, "broken" was the top answer among millennials (26.2%) — more than any other generation.
• 12.3% of millennials describe owning their home as more of an obligation than an achievement (vs. 10.7% overall). The pride is still there, but it's fading with each generation.

The part that surprised us most:

Baby boomers — the generation that supposedly "won" at homeownership — are actually the most pessimistic about it as a system. 

They're:

• The only generation whose top word for the dream is "eroding" (37.9%)
• The least likely to say it fully delivered (13.8%), and 
• The most worried they'll burn through retirement savings before they can help their kids buy a home (62.5%).

The difference seems to come down to the why. Baby boomers watched something decline. Millennials feel like they inherited something that was already broken. Same conclusion, different road to it.

What we keep coming back to:

There's a weird generational agreement happening here. Nobody thinks the current system works — not the people who benefited from it, and not the people trying to break into it. But there's still no consensus on what to do about it.

So, we're curious what this community thinks:

• Did you get parental help to buy your home? Do you think you needed it?
• If you're a parent, do you feel the pressure to help your kids buy a home — and can you?
• Is "broken" the right word to describe the system, or is it just "different" now?

How does this match (or contradict) your experience? 

(Methodology: 1,000 U.S. homeowners ages 18+, balanced to Census data, surveyed through AYTM in June 2026. Millennials counted as ages 25–44, Gen X 45–64, Baby boomers 65–79.)