More of America’s highest-income households are choosing not to turn their purchasing power into homeownership in a rental market that offers them more flexibility, mobility, and choice.

The number of U.S. households earning at least $1 million a year while renting the home they live in rose 229% between 2020 and 2024, climbing to about 18,400 households, according to a new RentCafe analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.

“Standard measures treat renting as a fallback for people who can’t buy. Here, the top of the income distribution may increasingly be renting by choice,” explains Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones.

And overwhelmingly, young high-income households are the ones leveraging that choice. Nearly half (49%) of millionaire renters are Millennials, whose numbers surged 392% between 2020 and 2024. While Gen Z accounts for just 2% of the market, its millionaire renter population grew 46-fold over the same period—the fastest of any generation.

Millionaire homeowner households also grew rapidly over the same period, rising 193%. Renters still make up only a small share of $1 million-income households, but their share rose from 8% to just under 9%, according to Jones.

More of America’s highest-income households are choosing not to turn their purchasing power into homeownership in a rental market that offers them more flexibility, mobility, and choice. UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

It suggests that the trend isn’t a rejection of homeownership but a generational complication of it. These younger millionaires came of age in a housing market dominated by the ultralow mortgage rate homebuying boom and the steep run-up in home prices and borrowing costs that followed.

And for many, it would seem, that made buying less of an obvious next step—even once they could afford it.

Why wealthy households are choosing to rent

Some of the dramatic growth comes down to math, according to Jones.

“Part of the gap is a base effect, since renters started from far fewer households; it is possible to see more growth,” she explains.

The number of U.S. households earning at least $1 million a year while renting the home they live in rose 229% between 2020 and 2024, climbing to about 18,400 households, according to a new RentCafe analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. New Africa – stock.adobe.com

The total number of households earning at least $1 million nearly tripled, from about 70,000 to 208,000, and owners accounted for the overwhelming majority of that increase. In absolute terms, renter households grew by roughly 12,800, compared with about 125,000 additional millionaire homeowners.

Jones also notes that the $1 million threshold is nominal rather than adjusted for inflation, meaning some of the growth reflects more households crossing a fixed income benchmark over time.

Even so, the math still doesn’t explain why high earners might find renting attractive in the first place.

On that front, the occupational makeup of millionaire renters offers some clues. RentCafe’s data says many work as chief executives, technology professionals, and financial managers—high-paying careers that can come with greater geographic mobility.

And renting gives these professionals something ownership doesn’t: the ability to easily move.

About 21.6% of people living in renter-occupied households changed residences in 2024, compared with 6.2% of those living in owner-occupied households, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Renters were also roughly three times as likely to have moved from another state.

Nearly half (49%) of millionaire renters are Millennials, whose numbers surged 392% between 2020 and 2024, according to reports. fizkes – stock.adobe.com

That mobility can carry economic value of its own, particularly early in a career, when changing jobs—and sometimes cities—can open the door to better opportunities. Workers in their first seven years of employment got roughly 36% to 42% of their cumulative earnings growth from moves between employers, according to a 2021 study using U.S. Census Bureau employer-employee data.

RentCafe says this dynamic is particularly visible in Houston, where affluent newcomers—including executives, professional athletes, and entertainers—often rent after relocating before deciding whether to buy.

Homeowners, meanwhile, are getting hit with more incentives to stay put. Federal Reserve researchers estimate that mortgage rate lock-in explained 44% of the decline in mortgage-borrower mobility from 2021 to 2022.

About 21.6% of people living in renter-occupied households changed residences in 2024, compared with 6.2% of those living in owner-occupied households, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

The rate cycle also helps explain why millionaire renting survived a period that initially seemed tailor-made for buying.

“The rate environment worked both for and against these households,” Jones says. Ultralow rates made borrowing cheap early in the period, but inventory was scarce.

“By the time inventory started to recover, both prices and rates were higher, making buying less attractive,” she adds.