Brandi Ross has “never even considered homeownership.”

Ross, 33, is running for a Tribal Council seat with the Cherokee Nation, of which she is a citizen. As an at-large candidate, she’s campaigning to represent the thousands of tribal citizens who live outside the Cherokee Nation Reservation, in northeastern Oklahoma. Ross lives in Hawaii, where her fiancé is stationed with the army, but when he leaves the service later this year, the couple has a choice to make about where they’ll live. Buying a home is probably not in the cards, Ross told USA TODAY.

“I've always just thought I'm going to be a renter until I die, and I think that's the mindset of a lot of millennials,” she said. “We're just defeated, I guess.”

It’s not specifically the hurdle of scraping together a down payment that makes ownership feel so challenging, she said, but more that many people her age feel they live “paycheck to paycheck” because the cost of living is so unaffordable.

Buying a home has advantages and disadvantages, and may or may not be the right choice at any age or stage of life. But it’s long been seen as the “American Dream” – not to mention a dependable way to build wealth and obtain more economic stability than is typically available to renters. And for young people, achieving homeownership is often seen as a rite of passage, a step toward becoming an adult.

But new data seems to suggest America is moving backward, not forward, in making that possible.

In the 12 months ending in mid-2024, Baby Boomers made up the biggest share of home buyers, according to data from the National Association of Realtors released in April. At 42%, buyers ages 60-78 vastly outnumbered millennials, who accounted for 29% of those purchasing a home.

What’s more, the average age of first-time homebuyers hit an all-time high of 38 last year, even as the market share commanded by first-timers hit an all-time low of 24%. And roughly 95% of buyers younger than 44 used a mortgage for their purchase, while 40%-50% of those older than 60 were able to use cash.

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Read: Why is housing so expensive? There simply aren't enough homes.

“The U.S. housing market is split into two groups: first-time buyers struggling to enter the market and current homeowners buying with cash," said Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist and vice president of research, in a report describing the findings.

Molly Goodman is the co-founder of Abundant Housing Massachusetts, a housing advocacy organization. Goodman has dedicated much of her career to helping people into homeownership, including by conducting housing counseling trainings. The recent disparity between Boomers and millennials feels “bleak,” she said.

Older generations had more success becoming homeowners, Goodman said. “We see the outcome of that. They established houses, had families. But many of their children can't accomplish the same things, and it's definitely not for lack of trying.”

Young people – Goodman is also a millennial – know the reasons for their plight are familiar, but they still chafe. Among them: residential construction has fallen short of the needs of a growing population for over a decade, making housing scarcer and pricier.

In 1984, when a Baby Boomer might have been roughly the same age Brandi Ross is now, the median-priced home cost $78,200. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $240,700. But the median-priced home today is $403,700 – 80% more.

What’s more, Americans are entering their working years with more student debt than ever before, as the cost of higher education has skyrocketed and more schooling is required for most career pathways.

That’s a big hurdle, perceived or real, for many younger Americans. In December, Nicole Robinson, a 26-year-old school administrator in Richmond, Virginia, told USA TODAY that many people her age have so much student debt that most have given up on homeownership . Robinson and her husband do own their home, but she isn’t sure they’ll ever be able to afford children.

Robinson’s mother, Terri, is a real estate agent in northern Virginia. Terri isn’t as concerned about the statistics from NAR. It’s only natural for Boomers to be downsizing, she said, particularly as they get ready to move into housing that’s more age and lifestage-appropriate – and it makes sense that those who are older have the home equity to be able to buy their next home in cash.

Still, she said, the knowledge that young people like her daughter think homeownership is unobtainable “saddens” her.

“They are also saddled with high costs from college tuition,” Robinson said. “I think that's a really heavy burden on them. At the same time, the job market itself isn't as assured just because you got a college education. And they feel correctly, I think, that their dollar doesn't go as far in the housing market.”

Robinson also believes that training and counseling can go a long way toward helping many Americans achieve better outcomes in the housing market, and that many simply aren’t aware of their options or how to capitalize on them.

Brandi Ross, however, lives with a strong sense that housing is increasingly bifurcated between haves – whether they are those who can afford to buy thanks to family help or landlords lobbying for laws that favor them over tenants – and the have-nots, like herself.

“I absolutely believe this is a policy failure,” she said.