22M Americans delayed buying a home during COVID-19: Bankrate

Yahoo Finance’s Sarah Paynter joins Kristin Myers to discuss how over 20 million Americans delayed buying homes amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: And as coronavirus slows down job gains, it's also delaying home buying. So for more on this, we're joined now by Yahoo Finance's Sarah Paynter. Hey, Sarah. So tell us what's going on. Who's delaying these home buying? And how big of a problem is it?

SARAH PAYNTER: Yeah. So we know that a lot of people during the coronavirus pandemic put off buying a house. A new study from Bankrate just came out showing that about 9% of the population or 22 million Americans are expected to have delayed a home-buying purchase, which seems really high when you first hear that number. But you have to remember that 10% of Americans move every year according to the Census Bureau. So it makes sense that those that were planning to move in 2020, all of them would have their plans impacted for the most part by the coronavirus pandemic.

So especially young people, people who didn't have much savings to cushion any blows during this crisis and might have more debt-- a lot of millennials and Gen Z-ers do. So we're seeing a lot of still slow down in that, despite there is this burst of pent-up demand among those who did pause, there's still some who are waiting to buy.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Sarah Paynter, thanks so much.

SARAH PAYNTER: Thanks.

KRISTIN MYERS: And--