PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

It shouldn’t be a surprise, given that so many older Pittsburghers choose to stay in the Steel City, but more are also hanging onto their larger homes, leaving fewer options for millennials with children.

Pittsburgh tops the list of the 50 U.S. metro areas where empty-nester baby boomers own the highest share of large homes — 3 bedrooms or more — at 32.1%, according to a recent report by the real estate brokerage firm Redfin, based on American Community Survey Census figures. Millennials own only 12.7% of the larger homes in the Pittsburgh area.

As a comparison, Riverside, California, No. 50 on the list, has empty-nester boomers owning 21.9% of the larger homes and millennials 16.4%.

“Boomers don’t have much motivation to sell, financially or otherwise,” said Redfin senior economist Sheharyar Bokhari, in a statement. “They typically have low housing costs, and the bulk of boomers are only in their 60s, still young enough that they can take care of themselves and their home without help.”

On the Pittsburgh market, Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh, posted on social media: “My hypothesis here would be that we have had such lower real estate appreciation for decades that the incentives to sell and buy something smaller is less here.”

Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 and for years had been the largest population group in the U.S. But the number of millennials, born between 1981 to 1996, recently eclipsed the boomer population and now make up 28% of the total population.

Nationally, 28% of the larger homes are owned by adults without children. Of other population groups, Gen-Xers (born right after the boomers between 1965 and 1980) own just 12% of larger homes and Gen-Zers (born between 1997 and 2012) own 0.3% of larger homes.

Where are those millennials living if they can’t find larger homes to buy? Nationally, the report says, some young families rent large homes: 1 in 10 (9.3%) millennials with children live in three-bedroom-plus rentals. Others rent smaller units.

The Redfin report noted that boomers own a larger share of large homes for several reasons:

• There’s little financial incentive to sell large homes because most boomers have no mortgage.
• For millennials and Gen Zers, it’s harder to find and afford a home.
• A recent Redfin survey found that many millennials are not interested in home ownership.
• Boomers built wealth. Today, boomers hold half of the wealth in the U.S., and much of it is in real estate.
• Boomers are older, so they’ve had more time to buy homes.