Home buyers are increasingly turning to family members, most often parents, for help buying a house in overpriced and undersupplied markets, reflecting a shift in the way many families finance homeownership.

The share of young home buyers relying on older mortgage co-signers is as high as it has been in at least 30 years, according to a Freddie Mac analysis of its home loans. In 1994, 1.6 percent of first-time home buyers under 35 had a co-borrower age 55 or older. By 2022, after a pandemic-era spike, that figure had more than doubled to 3.7 percent, matching a high set in 2015.