The industry often laments the problems that keep young people from buying homes – but it’s also lenders’ responsibility to help Millennial customers find solutions
We've been talking about the issue for years. As Millennials become an increasingly larger portion of the market, they are becoming increasingly important to the mortgage industry. We do see more Millennials entering into the market than we saw years ago, but we still do not see as many Millennials entering into the market as we would like.
On the November 14 episode of my Lykken on Lending podcast, we had the opportunity to interview Leslie Gibin of Arch MI on why the Millennial market is growing so slowly. The answers aren't anything we haven't heard before: slow job growth, lack of job security, income, student debt, etc. What really fascinated me, though, was the discussion on some of the things Arch MI is doing to address the problem.
Listening to Leslie, it got me thinking about our roles as leaders in the mortgage industry. It is often so easy to lay the blame elsewhere. We can blame the economy, the current presidential administration, excessive regulations, poor education, or whatever else we think may be the cause of our problems.
When it comes to the problems we encounter with Millennial consumers, we often look for explanations as to why they aren't adopting home ownership at the rate of previous generations. That's all fine and good but, in addition to looking for explanations, we should also be looking for solutions. As leaders in the mortgage industry, it's our responsibility to solve problems for our customers – including Millennials. Just something to keep in mind as we continue to deal with this issue: we have more power than we often give ourselves credit for.
On the November 14 episode of my Lykken on Lending podcast, we had the opportunity to interview Leslie Gibin of Arch MI on why the Millennial market is growing so slowly. The answers aren't anything we haven't heard before: slow job growth, lack of job security, income, student debt, etc. What really fascinated me, though, was the discussion on some of the things Arch MI is doing to address the problem.
Listening to Leslie, it got me thinking about our roles as leaders in the mortgage industry. It is often so easy to lay the blame elsewhere. We can blame the economy, the current presidential administration, excessive regulations, poor education, or whatever else we think may be the cause of our problems.
When it comes to the problems we encounter with Millennial consumers, we often look for explanations as to why they aren't adopting home ownership at the rate of previous generations. That's all fine and good but, in addition to looking for explanations, we should also be looking for solutions. As leaders in the mortgage industry, it's our responsibility to solve problems for our customers – including Millennials. Just something to keep in mind as we continue to deal with this issue: we have more power than we often give ourselves credit for.
