What Does the Family Home Look Like in 2024?

Homes hold a lot of memories. They're where we took our first steps, learned life lessons, loved, lost, fought, and made up. Whether we lived with our parents, caregivers, grandparents, or found family, where we've lived is a core part of our childhoods.

And that's not just nostalgia talking. A 2024 Zillow study found that 44% of adults would buy their childhood home, if that was a possibility.

Though the stereotypical vision of the ideal American dream home (3-bedroom, 2-bath with a white picket fence, a spouse, 2.5 kids and a dog) is immortalized in our culture, that's not necessarily an accurate depiction of life today.

More and more people are choosing to live differently, whether they're prioritizing multigenerational households, buying a home with a friend, or choosing certain home renovations so they can age in place.

Increasing since the early 1990s, solo adults now make up about 28% of households and arrangements like roommates now make up about 7% of households, combining to nearly 9 million households in 2023, according to the census.

That's not the only change we're seeing. Within the last 20 years, a larger share of American households are multigenerational, meaning they consist of three or more generations. There were 6 million U.S. multigenerational households in 2020, up from 5.1 million in 2010, according to the decennial census.

In this report, we'll take a deep dive into what the American family home looks like today and how to make any space work for you and your family, in whatever form that takes.

Multigenerational Households Are on the Rise

As a child, Chelsea Harrison always envisioned herself becoming a homeowner.

"Growing up, I would've just assumed we would be able to buy a house," Harrison, 37, says. "But we've never financially been anywhere close to that being a possibility."

As rent prices rose around her Atlanta neighborhood and student loans needed paying, Harrison went looking for a creative solution for herself and her husband, as they hoped to start a family. She found it at her parents' house in an Atlanta suburb.

"This is kind of around the time that tiny homes had a huge boom, and we didn't want a true tiny home, but it did get us thinking about are there different ways to create a living space that we're not considering," Harrison says.

The solution? To renovate the 400-square-foot unused garage at her parents' home and convert it to a 900-square-foot home for her soon-to-be family of three.

This addition, commonly referred to as an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, is an additional property that contains its own full kitchen and bathroom on a single-family residential lot.

Harrison finished the renovation on the property just two weeks before her son was born. A year and a half later, Harrison's sister, brother-in-law, and two children purchased the home next door, turning the three dwellings into what they jokingly refer to as "the compound."

Harrison is not alone in choosing to live alongside her parents.

More Americans than ever are choosing to live multigenerationally, most commonly in the southeast and southwestern parts of the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2021, 18% of Americans were living in multigenerational households, up from 14% in 1991.

Culturally, it's divided even further with Americans who are Asian, Black or Hispanic more likely than those who are white to live in a multigenerational household.

The Case For Living With Your Parents — 3 Editors on Why It Works for Them

Though nearly 40% of adults in a multigenerational home cite economic reasons as the primary reason for choosing that lifestyle, like Harrison, over half find the situation rewarding all or most of the time.

"There's certain moments that to me, like holidays, that [interactions] tend to stay a little more on the surface," Harrison says, of life before living multigenerationally. "Instead, I loved when my son was born, sitting on the back porch in the morning when he would wake up and having coffee with my mom and just having other people around to do everything with and talk through certain things."

Harrison talks of the little things like passing books back and forth with her mother, borrowing ingredients from her sister, and her son learning to garden with his grandmother as benefits of the living arrangement. Her son is growing up in the home she grew up in, a scenario she calls "kind of magical."

Though ADUs make up a portion of this trend, multigenerational families are also homebuyers.

Fifteen percent of first-time buyers and 14% of repeat buyers are purchasing a multi-generational home, according to the National Association of Realtors, signaling that this movement is still on the rise.

More Adults Want to Age in Place

As Baby Boomers continue to grow older, aging in place is a primary concern. One in 4 adults living in multigenerational households say its to receive or give care for an adult family member.

Though Harrison didn't move in with her parents, who are in their early seventies, to care for them, the idea of them aging in place has crossed her mind.

"Us being here means that there's always just another double check on safety," Harrison says. "That wasn't our reason for this, but it will certainly be part of the reality of it, and we're happy to do it."

During the renovation of the garage unit, she also added a full bath on the main floor of her parents' home to make it more accessible.

"We just thought, should we ever need [my parents] to be on the main floor, if we're doing a reno now, make sure to have plumbing so that there is a full bathroom on the main floor," Harrison says. "If you're gonna do a project like this, think forward like that."

According to a 2021 study by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), 42% of home buyers consider several universal design features like a full bath on the main level to be a must-have.

Other popular renovations include widening hallways and doorways, non-slip floor surfaces, an entrance without steps, and bathroom aids.

It's not just Baby Boomers who are concerned about making their homes safe. In a 2021 Southern Living survey, Gen X and older believe it's important to plan for where they will live when they are older, citing a one-story set-up, fewer stairs, and nearby medical facilities as important considerations.

"When my dad had a medical emergency, my husband took him to the hospital and he helped with some of the care when he got back," Harrison says. "They've been able to help me when I've had health issues or when I've needed someone to take something off my plate parenting-wise when I was in the hospital, so it's reciprocal."

Welcoming New Additions in Any Space

While aging in place is a concern for many, so is welcoming a new member of the family, though people are waiting longer to do it.

In just 15 years, the average age of someone having their first child has increased with the majority of first-time births happening to people aged 25-29 in 2022 instead of 20-24 in 2007, according to the Center for Disease Control.

As generations wait longer to have their first child, they also are waiting to buy their first homes. Millennials are buying homes at a lower rate than previous generations at the same age, for primarily economic reasons, according to an Investopedia study.

Housing is still expensive. In April 2024, shelter costs were 5.7% higher than in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As Millennials plan for their families, they're also planning to make their current living situations multifunctional as they grow.

First-time mother, Yolanda, bought an apartment in Brooklyn with her husband in September and welcomed her daughter a few months later at age 32. A two-bedroom, one-bath walk-up on the fourth floor, Yolanda's apartment is around 850 square feet and close to a park for her daughter to play.

Before they bought the new place, they were happily renting with a friend, but the baby on the way led them to find a new place to live for their growing family.

"When we were looking last year, we couldn't find [a rental] in our price range that would make sense relative to buying," Yolanda says. "Just looking around the neighborhood, we happened upon this co-op and just kind of fell in love with it because it's a really good layout."

Making the space multi-functional for her family was top of mind for Yolanda, adding that there is an opportunity to add a third bedroom if they ever decide to have another child. As her daughter still sleeps in the primary bedroom with Yolanda and her husband, the future nursery is currently doubling as an office.

"Even before [the baby], we were constantly rearranging furniture, but more recently, we moved some furniture around thinking about how the baby might need the space to play at some point," Yolanda says.

Yolanda doesn't see her family moving to a larger space, at least not for a decade or so.

"The size is perfect for us right now," Yolanda says. "I think that if we stay in here for longer than 10 years, it might become challenging," noting that having more kids or her parents moving in might lead them to reconsider.

"But for now, it's working out really well," she says.

Buying a Home With a Friend Is Growing in Popularity

Family doesn't have to mean blood relatives; it could also be friends who turn into family. A growing trend among younger generations is to buy a home with a friend, instead of a romantic partner or family.

While it's largely an economic decision to co-buy, over a quarter of people just don't want to live alone.

Alecia Pillatos, a realtor and growth adviser at Zillow, bought her first home with friends in 2008 after they all lived in the same apartment building together. Though she was ahead of the trend, she's not alone.

According to Zillow's 2023 Consumer Housing Trends Report, one in seven home buyers say they co-bought with a friend. Gen Z and Millennials are most likely to hop on this trend.

So You Want to Buy a Home With Friends — Now What?

"Every time I've bought a house with someone, it's someone that I trust with my life," Pillatos says.

Pillatos recommends making an agreement with your co-buyers ahead of time, focusing on things like how payments will be split (mortgage, utilities, etc.), what happens when you sell, what happens if someone gets married or divorced and wants to move out, and other life changes, so there are no surprises.

Pillatos lived in that first home for 10 years and would do it again (and she has).

"They're relationships that, just like in college, you don't ever forget them," Pillatos says, of her former roommates. "There's tons of good memories."

How to Make Any Home Feel Like Yours

Whether you're renting, owning, living with family, or something in between, having a space to call your own is important.

For Harrison, having the home design that she wanted meant moving back on her parents' property, which isn't what she imagined, but she finds her living situation "comforting."

"This is why people live in tighter communities where everybody's strengths build everyone, and everybody is a safety net," Harrison says.

In this issue, we'll dive into how to make any type of home work for you. Whether you want to make a rental feel like a forever home, buy a home with a friend, or make sure you can grow your family or grow older safely, we break down everything you need to know to live well wherever you are.

Credits

Data Journalism Amanda Morelli

Primary Research Direction Bridget Sellers

Primary Research Maura Ruane & Maria DeSio

Research & Insights Esmee Williams

Design Amy Sheehan

Art Direction Corinne Mucha

Read the original article on The Spruce.