{"id":10401,"date":"2015-04-03T15:09:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T20:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=10401"},"modified":"2015-04-03T15:19:33","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T20:19:33","slug":"video-millennials-prioritize-mortgage-over-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/video-millennials-prioritize-mortgage-over-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Millennials prioritize mortgage over marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Lawrence<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst comes love. Then comes marriage.\u201d But for many young adults, that old saying may no longer be true. What comes after love might be a house.<\/p>\n<p>A new study by the financial brokerage firm Redfin shows that 38 percent of millennials \u2013 the generation born between 1980 and 2000 &#8212; would put off marriage or a honeymoon in order to finance a mortgage.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And with the average cost of the American wedding hitting its highest number ever in 2014\u2014$29,858 according to TheKnot.com\u2014it\u2019s not surprising that the current generation is choosing a more frugal approach.<\/p>\n<p>Geena Sondy and David Kotas, a millennial couple in Chicago, recently bought a home together, and they\u2019re choosing to forgo marriage completely.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Millennials prioritize mortgage over marriage\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/121511191?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGetting a mortgage with someone is a bigger commitment than getting married,\u201d Sondy said. \u201cThere\u2019s way more paperwork and logistics involved if something were to go wrong, so I don\u2019t think we would\u2019ve made that commitment not having considered those repercussions if something went badly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Redfin real estate agent Clayton Jirak says most of his millennial clients who make this decision do so for similar reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of my clients are running the numbers. They might be paying $1500 or $1600 dollars for a two bedroom in Lincoln Square and they realize that if they buy a two bedroom, two bath condo, it might be somewhere in the range of $1200 to $1300. And they\u2019re building equity, and they\u2019re gaining market value.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jirak also says that putting money into a home and a wedding at the same time is too big a cost for many millennials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany of my clients are choosing to buy a house, maybe with a lower down payment, due to financial constraints like saving for a wedding,\u201d he said. \u201cIn return they\u2019re also getting very good interest rates, which I think is a contributing facto to millennial couples purchasing homes prior to getting married.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_10403\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10403\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10403 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/03\/sondy-and-kotas-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"sondy-and-kotas\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/03\/sondy-and-kotas-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/03\/sondy-and-kotas.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10403\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Geena Sondy and David Kotas at the home they purchased together. Beth Lawrence\/MEDILL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Jirak also said America\u2019s Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 might have had an impact on the marriage rate. According to a study by the Population Reference Bureau, marriage rates were dropping for years until the Great Recession accelerated the process.<\/p>\n<p>Sondy and Kotas say it just made financial sense for them to buy a home together when they did, and most people are accepting of their arrangement when they tell them about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been together for so long,\u201d Sondy said. We\u2019ve been living together for about two years at this point. I don\u2019t feel like getting married would really change our daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 27 percent of couples who live together before marriage break up by the third year. However, more and more millennials are choosing to focus on the finances.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/cantv.org\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-8953\" src=\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/02\/CANTV_600px_Medill-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"CAN TV logo\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/cantv.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">MEDILL REPORTS<br \/>\nON CAN TV<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>In Chicago, watch Medill Reports video stories on CAN-TV channel 27<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Lawrence \u201cFirst comes love. Then comes marriage.\u201d But for many young adults, that old saying may no longer be true. What comes after love might be a house. A new study by the financial brokerage firm Redfin shows that 38 percent of millennials \u2013 the generation born between 1980 and 2000 &#8212; would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":10402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,28,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-general-interest","category-winter-2015"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>VIDEO: Millennials prioritize mortgage over marriage - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/video-millennials-prioritize-mortgage-over-marriage\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VIDEO: Millennials prioritize mortgage over marriage - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Beth Lawrence \u201cFirst comes love. Then comes marriage.\u201d But for many young adults, that old saying may no longer be true. What comes after love might be a house. 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