Millennials will be a major force in future housing markets, but they’ll also bring with them considerable changes.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before – Millennials are the next big source of housing demand, the generation that will take the baton from the Baby Boomers and lead the housing market forward in the 21st century.

It’s one of the prevailing memes in housing today, and we’ve no qualms with it; indeed, Millennials will define housing’s future, and their unique makeup will be a big reason for that.

Here are some of the key things to keep in mind:

1. A Big, Diverse Number – Baby Boomers may number 76 million, but Millennials are an even larger group at 87 million – and most remarkable of all, their diversity puts the Boomers to shame. Just 56 percent of Millennials are Caucasian, compared to 72 percent for Boomers, according to a CNN Money chart.

2. The Tip of the Diversity Iceberg – As CNN Money also notes, as impressive at Millennials’ diversity is, it represents the hypothetical tip of the iceberg. Not only is the most common age group in America 22 – that’s right, there were more 22 year olds last year than any other age group – but in today’s generation, Generation Z, Caucasians make up only 50 percent of the population; within a few years, the Census Bureau predicts, Caucasian children will no longer make up the majority.

So in other words, diversity will soon become the name of the real estate game, and it’s one you’ll want to be prepared for.

3. A Big Source of Demand – Finally, we already mentioned that Millennials will provide a tidal wave of demand for housing, but the numbers are still jaw-dropping. According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, the number of households in their 30s is expected to increase by 2.7 million in the coming decade. So Millennial demand for housing will be diverse, and it will also be enormous in number.