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Everybody needs a little help sometimes. And in this housing market<\/a>, people need their parents\u2019 help. More than a third of millennials and Gen Zers who are planning to buy a home expect their parents, or family, to help with their down payment in the form of a cash gift, according to<\/a> a Redfin-commissioned survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n If not cash, younger generations looking to buy a home are also planning to dip into their inheritance to fund their down payment, or are simply living with their parents or other family members to save money, Redfin data journalist Dana Anderson wrote. Unsurprisingly, younger generations are twice as likely to visit the bank of mom and dad for a down payment on a home than they were five years ago. \u201cJust 18% of millennials used a cash gift from family to help fund their down payment in 2019, according to a Redfin survey from that time, and the share had only increased to 23% by 2023,\u201d Anderson wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n We all know why that is. Home prices rose substantially during the pandemic housing boom, and mortgage rates<\/a> soared not long after; by Redfin\u2019s calculations, home prices are up almost 40% since the start of the pandemic, and rose 7% in the last year alone on the back of tight supply. As of the fourth quarter of last year, the median sales price<\/a> for houses sold in the country was $417,700.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBecause housing costs have soared so much, many young adults with family money get help from Mom and Dad even when they have jobs and earn a perfectly respectable income,\u201d Redfin\u2019s chief economist, Daryl Fairweather, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, Redfin conducted a survey of recent movers and found that 38% of more than 500 buyers under the age of 30 either used a cash gift from a family member or an inheritance for their down payment. Redfin\u2019s Fairweather, called them<\/a> \u201cnepo-homebuyers,\u201d a play on words, clearly drawing on nepotism. So forget Hollywood\u2019s \u201cnepo-babies,\u201d we\u2019ve got \u201cnepo-homebuyers\u201d\u2014what does that tell you about the housing market?<\/p>\n Consider this, the average home value<\/a> in Los Angeles is $953,501. If you want to put 20% down, that\u2019s $190,700; if you want to put 10% down, that\u2019s $95,350. The median household income<\/a> in the city is $76,244. If that\u2019s not realistic, consider a more affordable city, like Austin, where the average home value<\/a> is $533,719. If you want to put 20% down, that\u2019s still $106,744.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fairweather was a nepo-homebuyer herself. Her mother gave her the money she needed for a down payment when she was 27 years old, Fairweather previously told<\/a> Fortune<\/em>. \u201cHad it not been for her doing that, it would have taken me years to be able to afford a home of my own,\u201d Fairweather said, later adding that \u201cyear after year, prices kept going up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Even self-made millionaire, self-proclaimed New York City real estate queen, and Shark Tank <\/em>star Barbara Corcoran, is telling younger people to ask their parents for help so they can buy a home.<\/p>\n \u201cI have advised more people in their twenties to hit up their parents,\u201d Corcoran said on a podcast<\/a> last year. \u201cThere\u2019s no shame in that. Nobody buys under 40 in New York without the help of their family.\u201d<\/p>\n And we know parents are helping. John Burns Research and Consulting\u2019s vice president of demographics, Eric Finnigan, recently told<\/a> Fortune<\/em> that baby boomers were powering the housing market in multiple ways\u2014for one, by assisting their children. \u201cThey are still funding the purchase,\u201d he said, \u201cof their adult children\u2019s homes.\u201d<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing, in a time when family money matters more than ever, not every family can afford to do this.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe bigger problem is that young Americans who don\u2019t<\/em> have family money are often shut out of homeownership,\u201d Fairweather said. \u201cMany of them earn a perfectly good income, too, but they aren\u2019t able to afford a home because they\u2019re at a generational disadvantage; they don\u2019t have a pot of family money to dip into.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cThe American Dream is just as much about class mobility as it is the home with a white-picket fence, and the housing affordability crisis has made both elements of the dream harder to attain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to the CFO Daily newsletter to keep up with the trends, issues, and executives shaping corporate finance. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n