What Really Holds Back First-Time Buyers?
For Millennial and Gen Z employees, homeownership remains a top priority —but also a challenging one with high home valuations combined with high interest rates requiring an employee to allocate a significant portion of their income to a monthly mortgage payment.
To comfortably afford mortgage payments — principal and interest, plus property taxes and insurance — most industry experts say you should spend no more than 30% of your income towards a home. And the challenge with maintaining this income allocation percentage is often student loan debt.
The True Impact of Student Loan Debt
It’s not just about affording a monthly mortgage payment. Student loans often shape major career and life decisions:
29% say student debt has affected their ability to buy a home.
51% of non-homeowners report that their loans are directly delaying them from purchasing.
Others report delays in purchasing a car (31%), taking a vacation (35%), or starting a family (14%).
When asked what they’d do without the student loan burden, Millennials and Gen Z overwhelmingly say they’d use the money to save, invest, or finally buy a home.
Help Them Buy Without Paying Off Debt
While many companies have explored student loan repayment as a workplace benefit, that approach can be expensive, administratively complex, and still may not get employees any closer to buying a home.
That’s where First Home Partners offers a smarter path forward.
Our Homeownership Assistance Benefit
First Home Partners provides a no PEPM benefit employers can offer their teams to navigate the journey to homeownership—even in the face of student loan debt. We work with employer groups across Iowa to onboard and support employees in a personalized manner. This is actionable support from our trusted mortgage lenders and realtors working in sync to help employees overcome the affordability gap without needing to first eliminate their student loans.
Net Worth of a Homeowner is 40X the Net Worth of a Renter
Built for Today’s Workforce
Homeownership is still one of the most desired financial milestones for younger generations—but 60% of non-homeowner Millennials say student loan debt is holding them back.
Our benefit doesn’t erase that debt—it helps employees work around it through a flexible financing solution meant to help them initially get into a home and then refinance to a lower rate during an 18-month time frame at no out-of-pocket cost to them.
By introducing homeownership assistance through First Home Partners, employers don’t need to solve the student debt crisis. They can instead offer our benefit designed to provide employees with financial advantages in their pursuit of homeownership that can help negate the financial constraints of also paying a monthly student loan.
