Two factors driving the increase
Sunday is National Parents Day, and this year more families won’t have to travel as far to see their parents. In fact, many are even living under the same roof.
More families are beginning to live in “sandwich generation” homes, homes where three or more generations live under one roof. Homes with children, parents and grandparents represent 4.3% of all households, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data. That is up from 3.6% in 2006.
There are two main factors driving this trend, according to a recent report by Trulia. The first factor is economics. When the great recession hit, many families consolidated in order to make it through.
The second factor is America’s changing demographics. Multi-generation homes are more common among Asians and Hispanics, two of the fastest-growing U.S. populations.
An article in HousingWire’s April magazine states that despite all the media attention focused on Hispanic immigrants, the fastest-growing group of immigrants is actually Asians and, more specifically, Indians. Indians as well as Chinese-Americans are also more likely to own than rent.
As far as homeownership goes, however, Hispanics were the only major racial or ethnic group to increase their homeownership rate in 2015, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic homeownership rate averaged 45.6% in 2015, .2% higher than in 2014. However, in the 12 months ending December 2015, the increase surged from 44.5% to 46.7%, the largest one-year spike in more than a decade.
High-rent areas in Chicago, Long Island and Philadelphia as well as ethnic enclaves such as Miami, Los Angeles and Honolulu held the highest concentration of sandwich homes.
