The hottest baby registry item: Cash
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Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
Skip the fancy stroller, new parents want cash for down payments and day care.
Why it matters: It often takes a village to buy a home for the first time.
Baby's First Home Cash Fund, launched by Opendoor and Babylist this year, saw 1,060 total registry adds in the first half of 2024.
- Meanwhile, some physical items are on the decline. For example, requests for Dyson vacuums decreased by 30% from the first half of 2023 to 2024, per Babylist.
By the numbers: More than 6,000 child care-related GoFundMe pages have started in 2024, raising nearly $18 million. And more than 5,000 fundraisers have been started related to home-buying costs, according to figures shared by the crowdfunding platform.
What they're saying: This growth signals the normalization of asking for home-buying financial support on baby registries, says Lee Anne Grant, head of growth at Babylist.
- Parents are thinking longer term and more holistically, says Allie Cote, head of brand growth at Opendoor.
The big picture: The share of income a typical household would need to spend to buy a median-priced starter home in the U.S. has nearly doubled since 2012, according to Redfin.
- The average annual price for two children at a child care center exceeds the cost of annual mortgage payments in the majority of U.S. states, Axios' Emily Peck reports.
- For these reasons, housing and child care costs are top of mind for voters.
The bottom line: Stick to the registry.
