美国国家公共电台 NPR As Millennials Get Older, Many Are Buying SUVs To Drive To Their Suburban Homes

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Millennials are beginning to act more like their parents. This is the generation that was born after 1980. They came of age during the Great Recession. And now, as they grow older and have children, many are doing things like buying SUVs and homes. NPR's Sonari Glinton takes a look.

SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE 1: For the last decade or so we've heard a lot about how millennials are different from the rest of us. As a matter of fact, I've even done some of that reporting. And it turns out, well, not so much.

MICHELLE KREBS: Millennials are pretty mainstream 2 when it gets right down to it, especially when they start creating households and having families.

GLINTON: So who are you (laughter)?

KREBS: Who am I? I'm Michelle Krebs, executive analyst 3 with AutoTrader. And remember that this is the generation that just got clobbered 5 during the Great Recession. They came out of college just loaded down with debt. And they were unemployed 6, underemployed, moving back in with mom and dad. So they were set behind economically.

GLINTON: Krebs says this kept millennials out of the car market. But that's changing. In 2011, Krebs says millennials were 20 percent of the market. They're about 30 now. They'll be 40 percent of the market before the next decade if current trends continue. Growing older also is beginning to mean buying a house in the suburbs, says Svenja Gudell, the chief economist 7 with Zillow.

SVENJA GUDELL: When it comes time for millennials to actually purchase a home, oftentimes they choose suburbs over urban neighborhoods.

GLINTON: Zillow, by the way, is the real estate site. Gudell says millennials as a generation were scarred by the last Great Recession.

GUDELL: If you graduate into a recession, your lifetime earnings 8 are likely to be lower than someone who doesn't graduate into a recession.

GLINTON: The car and housing surveys show that the result of that scarring is millennials are much more budget-conscious than their older siblings 9, Gen Xers, and their baby boomer parents. The recession acted kind of as a big pause button for many choices Gudell says millennials were already going to be slow to make.

GUDELL: They end up dating for a longer amount of time before they actually end up getting married. And then we're seeing that the age at which women have kids has also gone up. And so instead of having children in your late 20s, you might start having kids when you're in your early 30s at this point.

GLINTON: Now, it's important to note that all millennials haven't given up their fixed-gear bikes and their downtown lofts 10. It's the oldest millennials who are entering a sort of key age, over 35. Now, depending on who you talk to, the oldest millennials are 37. As they cross that threshold Erich Merkle, an economist with Ford 11, says the group is buying SUVs - large ones. And the best-seller for millennials for Ford is their large SUV, the Explorer.

ERICH MERKLE: We expect them to carry on as they age with three-row SUVs and likely go larger simply because they need the space that - to accommodate children that are now teenagers or preteenagers.

GLINTON: This all seems good for the car companies, right? Well, Michelle Krebs, the auto 4 analyst, says not so fast.

KREBS: We know that millennials will buy one car. Will they be like the baby boomers and have 2, 3 or more cars in the driveway, in the household fleet?

GLINTON: That's kind of the looming 12 trillion-dollar question for the auto industry. Though as a Gen Xer, it's kind of fun to think millennials aren't that special. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.

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