Society 4 min read By Bethany Hadley
Gen Z renters prioritise travel over homeownership as costs rise
Young American adults are cutting back on housing, cars and everyday spending to fund travel, with 83% of Gen Z renters saying renting lets them save for experiences rather than a mortgage.
Gen Z renters in the United States are reordering their financial priorities, choosing travel and life experiences over the traditional markers of adulthood such as homeownership, according to new survey data. The shift is most visible in housing, where 83% of Gen Z renters say renting allows them to save for life experiences rather than tie up money in a home, a January 2025 survey of roughly 2,000 Gen Z renters by property management software company Entrata and Qualtrics found.
Nearly half of those renters, 45%, said they are prioritising travel and career growth over buying a home. The change is not confined to the youngest adult generation. A separate 2024 Entrata survey of US renters found that 41% said their American Dream has nothing to do with homeownership.
The financial trade-offs are becoming sharper as travel costs climb. Average US travel costs in August were 9% higher than a year earlier, according to NerdWallet’s Travel Price Index, with airfares up 23.4%. Yet nearly 44% of US Gen Z travellers say they frequently or very frequently take spontaneous leisure trips, compared with 25.2% of American travellers overall, according to Future Partners.
That willingness to keep flying despite higher prices means other spending must give way. A Skyscanner survey found that 52% of US Gen Z respondents would give up meals out if it brought their next trip closer, while 40% said they would cut back on haircuts. Individually, skipping dinner or stretching time between haircuts does not fund a trip to Europe, but combined with smaller housing ambitions and thriftier car choices, it points to a different spending hierarchy.
Homeownership has not disappeared from Gen Z’s aspirations entirely. More than half of Gen Z still considers owning a home part of the American Dream, even as affordability pushes it further out of reach. But those who still want to buy appear more willing to compromise on space. Seventy-four percent of Gen Z respondents said they would take a smaller home, compared with 64% of millennials, 57% of Gen X and 43% of baby boomers, according to a Cotality report released in September that surveyed homebuyers in five countries. Gen Z was also the generation most willing to cut lifestyle spending to afford a home, a reminder that travel and homeownership are still competing for the same dollars.
For some young adults, the compromise is simpler: they are not moving out at all. Nearly half, 49%, of adults under 30 lived with a parent in 2025, up 12 percentage points from 2019, according to the Federal Reserve. One economist told Fortune that the shift could reshape marriage, children and homebuying. In the Fed’s 2019 survey, saving money was the most common reason young adults gave for living at home.
Staying in a childhood bedroom or settling for less square footage hardly resembles the postwar image of upward mobility. But it can leave considerably more room in the budget for other priorities now, rather than assets later. The trade-offs extend from where they live to what they drive. In a 2023 survey, 55% of Gen Z respondents said they bought a used vehicle, while 55% of millennials bought new. More recent LendingTree data show that 51.5% of Gen Z borrowers with active auto loans originally borrowed less than $25,000, compared with 36.2% of millennials and 31.4% of Gen X borrowers.
Together, the data suggests a generation that is not necessarily rejecting the good life, but redefining it. The new American Dream may be less about owning more and more about seeing more, with travel treated as one of the few pieces of that life still within reach.
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