New study shows people would rather rent proven by the rise of the millionaire renter

It’s been reported that people are being priced out of homeownership, forced to settle for another lease, but that’s not the case across the board.

Homeownership is not a priority for everyone, and a new study by RentCafe found renting is preferable for many Millennials and Gen Zs—and it has nothing to do with cost.

With 43 million families living in apartments, the highest level in half a century, renting is popular even among high earners who are able to buy but prefer to rent instead. In fact, RentCafe’s recent analysis of IPUMS data reflected that the number of renters with annual incomes of over $150,000 grew by 82% between 2015 and 2020, faster than renters overall, who increased by 3.2% during the same period.

Now, from the 2.6 million high earners renting in the U.S. a new kind of tenant has risen: the millionaire renter, as the number of renter households with incomes of more than $1 million has tripled since 2015.

When looking at the total number of high-income renter households, New York is the “it” place for renters that earn over $150,000 with nearly 300,000 such households in 2020. Los Angeles is just behind New York with 82,655 high-income renter households, followed by San Francisco and Chicago with 80,020 and 51,000, respectively.

In fact, Chicago had a 97% increase in high-income renter households from 2015 to 2020, one of the biggest in the U.S.