Will they ever own a home? Long Island renters fear the 'American Dream' is out of reach

Richard Lefebvre, 37, has rented the same one-bedroom bungalow in Mastic Beach for the past 15 years.

Since then, he estimates he's paid more than $200,000 toward rent. But now that he's ready to own, homeownership feels further away than ever.

Before the pandemic, he considered buying a house in the hamlet and felt confident he could handle a mortgage payment of about $1,900 a month. He ultimately stopped looking because he thought prices were too high.

Now, as home prices and mortgage rates have climbed, he said he can't afford a monthly payment that could approach $3,500 on his $29 an hour salary as a school bus driver.

Lefebvre, who spent time in foster care as a teenager and moved into his own apartment at 21, said homeownership remains a milestone he hopes to achieve. But he increasingly finds himself weighing whether to remain a renter or leave Long Island altogether for a lower-cost area. 

"I’m already committed to the fact that I’m going to be working for the rest of my life," he said. "If I don’t own a home, if I don’t own something that increases in value, I will never be able to retire."

Across Long Island, many renters find themselves in a similar position — shut out of a housing market defined by record prices, limited inventory and rising borrowing costs. The consequences extend beyond delaying a purchase: Renters also miss years of building equity that could help fund a future home purchase or retirement.

Despite those challenges, Long Islanders who spoke with Newsday said they continue to aspire to homeownership, viewing it as a source of financial security and stability. Many said they had considered pursuing that dream elsewhere but remained tied to Long Island by jobs, businesses and family.

"The lure of suburban homeownership remains as powerful as ever," said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University. "How else do you explain the willingness of more and more people to go deeper and deeper in debt to realize their suburban dream?"

Millennials and Gen Z see a tougher path to homeownership

Fewer renters now believe they will ever own a home.

Renters gave themselves an average 34.7% chance that they will own their primary residence at some point in the future, according to a national survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February. That’s down from 55.9% a decade earlier — despite little change during that time in renters’ preference to buy a house.

Nicole Hinds, 37, works two jobs but said buying a home in Nassau County still feels out of reach while she rents a one-bedroom apartment in Jamaica, Queens, for $1,580 a month. By day, she works remotely as a workers’ compensation examiner and at night as a gate agent at Kennedy Airport.

Hinds said she has struggled to find a house where her mortgage payment would be no more than $3,500 in areas such as Hempstead or Uniondale that will keep her commute to the airport manageable.

"I feel like for now I’m going to be renting a little bit more long term until I find something within my budget or get a third job and make more money," she said. "But then when am I going to have time to enjoy my life?"

First-time homebuyers are older than ever. The typical first-time buyer was 40 in 2025, up from 29 in 1981, according to the National Association of Realtors. The share of first-time homebuyers as a percentage of all buyers has also plummeted to a record low of 21% in 2025, NAR reported.

Delaying that milestone defies the traditional narrative surrounding homeownership.

"You go to school, you get a good job, you rent for a little bit, you save money, you buy a house," said Shaan Khan, president of the Long Island Board of Realtors. "But that’s not the dynamic nowadays."

Long Island renters face a perfect storm of rising home prices, elevated mortgage rates and higher property tax and insurance costs, said Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of Housing Help in Greenlawn. Many are also struggling to save while paying high rents and balancing student loan debt.

Plus, for those looking to buy, Long Island remains one of the strongest seller’s markets in the country, with less than half the number of homes on the market as there were pre-pandemic. The number of houses for sale reached its lowest point in more than a decade in February, according to OneKey MLS.

"The American Dream is just not available to millennials and Gen Z as it was available for Gen Xers like me or boomers," Moya-Mancera said. 

At 42, Tia Powell is among those millennials who still want their own home. Powell, a clothing store manager, has improved her credit and debt-to-income ratio over the past few years, but still isn’t sure when she will qualify for a mortgage and find a home priced under $600,000.

Owning a home would give her more control over her living situation, she said.

Powell has moved between apartments over the past 15 years in Greenlawn, Glen Cove and Central Islip, where she now rents a two-bedroom townhouse with her daughter, 21, for $3,330 a month.

"I want the security," Powell said. "When you rent something, the landlord can easily sell it or can say it’s time for you to go."

She hopes to one day have a house with a large backyard to host friends and family for movie nights or karaoke without having to worry about guests cramped in an apartment.

"I could do what I want — paint a wall or put up a deck," she said. "I want to have roots somewhere."

‘I should have bought something years ago’

Kristen Williams, 45, would leave Long Island if her elderly mother, 76, wasn’t still here. The lifelong renter said she’s had to deal with unpredictable rent increases, neglectful landlords and rentals being put up for sale while she was living there.

"I should have bought something years ago," she said, estimating she’s paid more than $100,000 in rent over the years.

For many Americans, a home is their largest source of wealth, said Shannon Affholter, professor and co-chair of the real estate department at the University of Washington.

Nationally, the average homeowner has a net worth 43 times that of the average renter, according to NAR.

The gap can compound over time as homeowners build equity and benefit from rising property values while renters miss out on those gains.

"You’re not going to be able to accumulate wealth," Affholter said. "That’s going to create a gap between those who have and those who have not, even more so over time."

Soaring home prices have also widened wealth disparities. A study published in 2024 by University of Michigan professor Joe LaBriola found that rising home values accounted for 70% of the widening wealth gap between white and Black households between 1984 and 2021.

The homeownership gap between white and non-white households is smaller on Long Island than nationally. But in a region where homeownership rates are among the highest in the country, the divide between owners and renters may be especially pronounced, LaBriola said. 

"You have such a high percentage of households benefiting from rising house prices, and renters are falling behind," he said.

Renting doesn’t have to doom a person’s ability to save for the future, said David Frisch, a certified financial planner and CEO of Frisch Financial Group in Melville. But renters need the discipline to invest money they aren’t spending on property taxes, insurance and maintenance. That’s key to narrowing the gap with homeowners, who benefit from both appreciation and tax deductions.

"Trying to equalize through savings will help bridge the gap," he said.

Raising a family as a renter

In interviews, Long Island tenants described a rental market that feels increasingly hostile to families as parents struggle to find apartments that meet their needs.

Megan Dell’Orto, 36, and her husband are moving to a three-bedroom to give their 2-year-old daughter her own room. The new place costs $3,500 per month, which pushes the limits of their budget, but they took it because utilities are included.

It’s the family’s 11th apartment since 2012, and the rental market has become both more competitive and more expensive. Finding apartments they can afford with enough space for the young family, a private backyard with a fence, and landlords who allow pets has been challenging, she said.

"We always try to save, but life happens," she said.

Families like Dell’Orto’s are navigating a rental market where larger units remain scarce and expensive. The average asking rent for an apartment on Long Island was $3,051 as of June 5, according to CoStar, an Arlington, Virginia-based provider of real estate data.

Rental costs are driven by an imbalance between the demand for living on Long Island and too few apartments available for rent, said Kyle Strober, executive director of the developers’ group Association for a Better Long Island.

The Island’s rental vacancy rate was 4.6% in early June, according to CoStar.

Property taxes, insurance and operating costs contribute to higher rents, Strober said.

"Until we start getting proactive in creating more units at a higher rate than what we’re doing right now, Long Island will remain difficult to afford for the hardworking middle class," he said.

Parents often use school districts as a guide when choosing where to rent.

Micheline Swicicki, 48, moved to Huntington Station last summer with her daughter to be near family after her husband died in 2024. She rents a house that’s bigger than what she needs, but it’s in a school district that she likes and includes a fenced in yard for her German shepherd.

Her 8-year-old daughter is now thriving at school and, for Swicicki, keeping her there is the priority.

"She’s already, in her eight years, already gone through so much heartache, that if I can make this any easier and if I have to pay a little bit more, that’s what I do," she said.

'Suburbs need to evolve'

On Long Island, decades of policies that limited housing construction, particularly rental housing, have contributed to today’s affordability crisis, said Moses Gates, vice president of housing and neighborhood planning at the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit civic group that researches policies to benefit the metropolitan area.

The region needs a wider variety of housing options, including transit-oriented development, he said, pointing to Patchogue as an example of a downtown with apartments in walking distance of the Long Island Rail Road and single-family neighborhoods.

"On Long Island, we have to acknowledge that the suburbs need to evolve. There is not enough housing," said state Assemb. Michaelle Solages, who represents western Nassau and has advocated for pro-housing policies.

To be a place that attracts young professionals, Long Island needs to get creative about building more housing that fits the suburban lifestyle, she said.

The middle class is being squeezed out, Solages said, and "the biggest thing that I hear about is the cost of housing."

Lefebvre believes if he stays in his Mastic Beach bungalow rental, his financial future is in jeopardy.

He’s still not sure where he’ll go next, but he’s determined to make his current rental his last.

"Wherever I land, I’m not renting. I’m moving to own," he said. "It’s becoming more of a reality every day. That is the next big leap of faith in my life."