First-time Homebuyers Shun New York City

The condo board at the Odell Park Place Condominium 1 in Harlem had a problem that’s uncommon in New York City, for reasons that will soon become apparent. Roughly half of the buyers in the new condo are first-time homeowners, which meant they needed to shed their “renter’s mentality” and embrace the responsibilities that come with home ownership. To this end, the ingenious condo board developed a tailor-made set of house rules, adapted from the offering plan, and distributed it to all unit-owners. “We wanted owners to feel they own part of the entire building, not just their units,” says board treasurer Andrew Dawson. “The object isn’t for the board to be paternalistic about this, but to instill a sense of ownership.”

The Odell Park Place board’s problem was unusual because, even as a growing number of millennials are wading into the home-buying market nationally, New York City remains one of the worst places in the nation for first-time buyers, according to a new report from Wallet Hub. The report analyzed 23 metrics important to homebuyers – from affordability to quality of life to crime rates – in 300 cities of varying sizes. McKinney, Texas, was rated the very best destination for first-time buyers, followed by Frisco and Allen, both in Texas; Cary, North Carolina; and Norman, Oklahoma.

The worst place for first-time buyers was El Monte, California, followed by New York City; San Mateo, California; Newark, New Jersey; and San Francisco.

Nationwide, first-time home buyers made up 33 percent of all home transactions in May, a year-over-year increase of 3 percent, data from the National Association of Realtors show.

“I had assumed that we would start to see millennials come in in force in the next two years,” says Amy Bonitatibus, chief marketing officer at Chase Home Lending. “They’re already here and buying today.”

Maybe in McKinney, Texas, but not in New York, New York.