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Los Angeles Millennials Just Aren't Buying Houses

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LA ranks just about last for Millennial homebuying, but when young people do buy, they also have some of the highest mortgages

We know that many young Angelenos just aren't making enough to be able to afford to buy a home, and those who can swing a place are met with a less-than-plentiful supply of inexpensive starter homes, and this all adds up to fewer LA Millennials (here, people 34 and under) sinking their teeth into homeownership, according to a new report out from LendingTree, an online loan marketplace.

In a release, the site says they looked at the number of mortgages taken out on their site over the last year across 59 big cities in the nation and found that LA came in 58th place. (Greensboro, North Carolina was number 59.) On average, 41.36 percent of LendingTree's mortgage requests came from people under 35, but in LA, only 36.17 percent of total requests come from Millennials.

Those Millennials who were lucky enough to be able to buy were taking out some of the highest mortgages in the country, forking over an average monthly payment of about $2,091 after putting nearly $65,000 down. Their mortgages were the third largest in the nation—$361,356—after San Francisco and San Jose.

By some measures, Los Angeles hasn't been affordable for young people in decades, so it's no huge surprise that Millennials aren't exactly lining up with suitcases of money to buy homes. It's cool: they can just keep renting apartments they probably can't afford forever.