For millions of young Americans, moving out is no longer a rite of passage. It’s becoming a luxury that a precious few can actually afford.

A record 25.2 million adults under the age of 35 were living with their parents last year, according to a new Realtor.com analysis, marking the highest total ever recorded and surpassing even the spike seen during the pandemic.

The findings suggest the country’s housing crunch is reshaping the timeline of adulthood. Roughly one-third of Americans under 35 now live under the same roof as their parents, a share that has remained stubbornly elevated for years despite a strong labor market.

The report points to soaring housing costs as the primary culprit.

“The adults living with their parents today are largely employed, and many hold college degrees. What’s holding them back isn’t a lack of qualifications, but rather, at least in part, a lack of housing they can actually afford,” Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com, said.

“This is a supply story, not an employment story.”

The typical home listed for sale nationally now carries a price tag of about $430,000, more than one-third higher than before the pandemic. Asking rents have also climbed sharply over the same period, putting both ownership and renting farther out of reach for many younger households.

Had living arrangements remained consistent with the patterns seen in the early 2000s, nearly 4.9 million fewer adults would still be residing with their parents today, according to the study.

The trend extends well beyond recent college graduates struggling to get started.

Among Americans between 25 and 34 years old who live at home, about seven in 10 hold jobs. The share of employed adults in their late 20s who reside with parents has steadily risen over the past quarter century, even as workforce participation within that group has remained relatively stable.

The data also challenges another common assumption. Most of those living at home have never married, and an increasing share hold college degrees.

About one-third of 25- to 29-year-olds living with parents possess a bachelor’s degree or higher, illustrating how educational attainment has not insulated younger generations from affordability pressures.

The numbers become even more striking among millennials. Nearly 3 million adults between 30 and 34 years old now live with their parents, roughly double the figure recorded at the beginning of the century.

Researchers say the roots of the problem stretch back years.

The housing market never fully recovered from the construction slowdown that followed the 2008 financial crisis, creating a shortage of roughly 4 million homes nationwide. The pandemic then delivered a second shock, sending prices and borrowing costs sharply higher and leaving many would-be buyers sidelined.

A small slice of young adults managed to take advantage of historically low mortgage rates during the early pandemic years. Those who came later faced a dramatically different landscape defined by stagnant higher rates, limited inventory and expensive rents.

As a result, many Americans who would traditionally have formed households of their own remain parked in childhood bedrooms, delaying major milestones such as marriage, homeownership and wealth building.

Jones said the growing number of adults living with parents represents a wave of future housing demand waiting on the sidelines.

“Twenty-five million adults living with their parents represents a generation of latent demand the market hasn’t absorbed,” Jones said. 

“Every adult still in a childhood bedroom is a household not formed, a lease unsigned, a starter home unpurchased. The typical first-time buyer is now 40 — that’s not a coincidence, it’s the math of a market that hasn’t built enough.”