She has a Penn State degree, a communications career, and a nearly completed grad school program. But at 27, Tipawa Kaunda still lives with her parents in Dallas.
“I looked at Houston,” said Kaunda, a Zambian American grad student and communications strategist. “I was doing the math. Rent, utilities, car insurance, groceries, and everything I was finding was pretty much equaling what I make in a month. I was working a decent job, and I still couldn’t make it work.”
A new analysis by Realtor.com found that 25.2 million adults under 35 lived with a parent in 2025, roughly one in three young adults, surpassing even the pandemic-era peak. Roughly 70% of those in the 25-34 age group are employed, pointing squarely to housing costs rather than employment as the driver. The national median home listing price hit $430,000 in 2025, up 34% from 2019. The median asking rent climbed to $1,673, up nearly 18% over the same period.
Houston has long marketed itself as one of the more affordable major cities in the country. According to the C2ER Cost of Living Index 2025 Annual Average, the city’s housing costs sit 20.2% below the national urban average. But local data tells a more complicated story for Black residents. The Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University flagged a decline in Black homeownership across Harris County in its most recent State of Housing report, noting that home prices in heavily Black outer-loop neighborhoods, including Acres Homes and South Acres, rose by 30% to 60% between 2020 and 2025.
Meanwhile, a Houston household needs an annual income of roughly $91,200 to afford the typical monthly homeownership costs here, according to the Houston Association of Realtors, a benchmark out of reach for many young workers.
For Brittani Anderson, a Prairie View A&M University graduate who has lived and worked in Houston since 2017, the barriers became clear after a divorce left her a single mother. She moved in with her parents in July 2025.
“Credit and just trying to save,” said Anderson, 34, who is now pursuing a master’s in social work while raising her daughter. “When you want a house, they want you to put down a certain amount of money. And it seems like once you pay your bills, you really don’t have any money after that. It seems like you have to get a second job just to save.”
Anderson said when she and her ex-husband attempted to buy a home together, her credit score was the obstacle, even though they had saved enough for a down payment. She believes the system needs to be restructured.
“As long as people can prove they have an income and they’re working,” she said. “I don’t think a credit score should stop someone from being approved for a home.”
Kaunda and Anderson described navigating family dynamics as adults living under their parents’ roofs, renegotiating independence, setting boundaries, and balancing gratitude with the weight of unmet expectations. For Kaunda, her Zambian background helped reframe the experience.
“In our culture, the older you get, living with your parents is still very much a normal thing,” she said. “I recognized I was in a privileged position. Parents who don’t kick me out, that don’t make me pay rent. But I also wanted to maintain my own autonomy.”
Anderson, who had not lived with her parents since age 18, said returning home as a 34-year-old mother reshaped her relationship with them. “I’m still your child, but I’m your adult child, and I have a child,” she said. “Living with my parents now, I appreciate them so much more. I feel blessed that they’re in a position to let me and my daughter stay here.”
Houston-based realtor and real estate investor Jennifer Sutton, with Keller Williams, wants to change the narrative around what it means to stay home. She said the stigma is misplaced and the strategy is sound, if used intentionally.
“You are building the foundation for your future,” Sutton said. “While everyone else is renting and making someone else wealthy, you’re staying home and making a sacrifice so that you can be wealthy in the long term.”
Sutton purchased her first home in 2005 and has since built a personal real estate portfolio. She acknowledged that Houston’s reputation for affordability requires nuance. She said there are still pockets of the city where first-time buyers can get in, emerging neighborhoods, and suburbs further from the loop, but that young adults have to be willing to let go of buying their dream home first.
“Your first home does not have to be the most fabulous thing out there,” she said. “It’s something that gets you in.”
Her advice for young adults still living at home is to start before you think you’re ready.
“Why would I trade the comfort I have at home to go and struggle somewhere else?”
Tipawa Kaunda, grad student and communications strategist
“People assume they can’t afford a house and they haven’t even talked to a lender,” Sutton said. “Connect with the professionals. Understand your current state. It might be a buyer’s journey of two or three years, and that is actually okay.”
That plan is in motion for Kaunda. She expects to finish her graduate degree in marketing analytics within the next two months. Houston remains on her radar. But she is clear-eyed about what it will take.
“This is a systemic issue,” she said. “It’s not just the housing; it’s that everything is going up. Living a respectable life, even in a studio apartment, is just not realistic for a lot of us right now. And why would I trade the comfort I have at home to go and struggle somewhere else?”
