Houston and its surrounding cities have already proved to be magnets for millennials, and now a new national housing report has established the city as one of the 15 hottest destinations for millennials, whose local homeownership rate has nearly doubled since 2018.

The number of millennials who own their homes in Houston has grown from 227,365 to 418,698 households over the last five years (84.2 percent), according to a new housing analysis from RentCafe.

The study compared homeowner growth rates versus renter growth rates of millennials — based on Pew Research Center's definition as individuals born between 1981 and 1996 — across 107 U.S. metro areas from 2018 to 2023.

Houston ranked No. 29 in the overall list of U.S. metros that have seen the highest increase in millennial homeowners since 2018. About 49 percent of all Houston-area millennials own their homes, with the remaining 51 percent renting, the report found.

Houston also ranked 22nd in the national list of cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial-age renters. The number of millennial renter households jumped from 397,410 to 439,371 in five years, a 10.6 percent hike.

About 5.3 million millennials have become homeowners over the last five years nationwide, RentCafe's analysts said, which represents a massive 74 percent increase in millennial-owned households. The growth rate of renters was much lower in comparison.

"At the same time, the number of millennial renters in the U.S. rose by a modest 5 percent, adding approximately 600,000 households," RentCafe said. "This brings the total number of millennial homeowner households to 12.4 million, close to the 12.6 million millennial renter households."

While the rate of millennial homeowners is on the rise, the same can't be said for Gen Zers. Less than 15 percent of all Gen Z households in Houston own their homes, while the vast majority are renters, a separate RentCafe study found.

Elsewhere across the state, Austin (No. 7) and San Antonio (No. 10) ranked among the top 10 U.S. cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial homeowners.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest gains in millennial homeowners are:

• No. 1 – North Port, Florida
• No. 2 – Lakeland, Florida
• No. 3 – Jacksonville, Florida
• No. 4 – Stockton, California
• No. 5 – Oxnard, California
• No. 6 – Palm Bay, Florida
• No. 7 – Austin, Texas
• No. 8 – Tuscon, Arizona
• No. 9 – Deltona, Florida
• No. 10 – San Antonio, Texas