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Prohibitive prices have locked Gen Z out of buying a home on Elm Street, so many of them are turning to Wall Street. A Pew Research Center survey found 89% of adults under 40 say buying a home is harder for their generation than it was for their parents. Instead of real estate, Gen Z is leaning hard into retirement savings such as 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. Fidelity found their retirement contributions are growing 65% year-over-year, more than double the rate of millennials.
Gen Zers like Kana Cummings, 26, opened a Roth IRA during her junior year of college after a personal finance workshop helped her make sense of pandemic-era anxiety. She’s kept investing ever since. “I’m just trying to be conservative and make sure I have a few different buckets of savings so I’m all set in the future,” she told the New York Times.
The strategy makes sense. Gen Zers’ parents and grandparents could count on a house and maybe a pension to set them up for retirement. Gen Z grew up watching both of those look further and further out of reach. So instead of saving for a down payment, a lot of them are just putting that money into the market instead, betting it’ll get them further than a mortgage would.