Carlton J. Brown III is about to sign off on one of the biggest decisions of his life.
The 29-year-old is buying a three-bedroom house with a yard and a two-car garage in McKees Rocks, a borough northwest of Pittsburgh. Brown, a lab technician at an oil blending plant, has been renting with friends for the past two years.
But, “I’m getting close to 30 and I felt it was time I needed to make an actual commitment to something,” he said.
Mortgage payments on the $50,000 house will be just $150 a month more than his current $325 share of the rent.
“I was pretty nervous at first,” Brown said. “I only got this because, at the price, I was able to afford it by myself, but I’ll probably try to get a roommate so I can make it more affordable”.
Compared to his parents’ or grandparents’ generation, Brown is late to homeownership. But among his peers, he’s an early starter.
The Millennial generation — those currently aged 18 to 34 — is more than a fifth of the population in Pennsylvania, but accounts for little more than 9 percent of all homeowners. In 2013, of about 850,000 households in the state headed by Millennials, 39 percent of them owned their homes instead of renting.
Read more of this report at the website of our partner PublicSource.
