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The Typical First-Time Homebuyer Is Now Almost 40. What Happened?
By Leslie Cook MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Here’s why Americans are nearly middle-aged before they become homeowners.
Homeownership is a big part of the American dream. For many hopeful buyers, that dream is coming true much later in life than expected.
According to a recent report from National Association of Realtors, the median age of homebuyers is 56, a seven-year jump from 2023 and a record high in the 43 years the NAR has been tracking this figure. Repeat buyers have a median age of 61, up from 58. First-time buyers are older, too: The median age rose to 38 from 35 last year.
That homebuyers are older today probably won’t surprise anyone who’s been home-shopping in recent years. Mortgage rates jumped from around 3% to over 7% in the last two years and are currently hovering in the high 6% range — not high by historical standards, but significantly higher than the record lows of 2021. Home prices increased and continue to rise in most cities across the country.
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View RatesThese two factors have led to a lack of affordability that has kept younger and first-time homebuyers in particular out of the market, Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research at NAR, wrote in a news release.
“First-time buyers face high home prices, high mortgage interest rates and limited inventory,” she wrote. The story is different for people who already own homes, she added, because they can use the equity built up in their current homes. Depending on their housing needs, that equity lets them either make a down payment on a more expensive home or downsize to something cheaper and buy outright with cash.
The aging of the American homebuyer
While the recent trend of older homebuyers might seem to have developed during the pandemic and its aftermath, it’s actually a long-term, secular trajectory that has been happening for decades. The NAR data shows a steady rise, with occasional dips, in homebuyer age since 1981 (see chart below).
Not all of these increases can be attributed to high home prices and mortgage rates. Will Begeny, vice president of marketing at Tomo Mortgage, says there are several socioeconomic reasons why people are putting off homeownership until later in life.
“People are getting married later… getting educated longer, starting their careers later,” Begeny says. Over the past four decades, Americans have increasingly prioritized these other goals over owning a home.
While these secular factors have contributed to the rising age of homebuyers for more than a generation, the high cost of entry into today’s housing market is forcing people to wait even longer. Homes themselves are more expensive, and closing costs and lender fees are higher. Higher mortgage rates pushed many would-be buyers to their breaking point: According to the NAR, 2023 was the slowest year for home sales in almost 30 years, and 2024 is on a similar pace so far.
A lack of entry-level starter homes, which are typically more affordable, also complicates the scenario and causes people to postpone becoming homebuyers. According to a survey of adults aged 40 and younger conducted by Chase late last year, 77% named the limited amount of inventory within their price range in the area where they wanted to buy as a major home-buying roadblock.
One big reason there are so few homes on the market is that current owners aren’t “trading up” as often as they were before the pandemic, instead choosing to stay and expand or renovate their current homes. The combination of higher interest rates and more expensive homes makes moving a financial impossibility for many families, especially those living in the priciest metro areas.
Older Americans also aren’t downsizing as much. Even though smaller homes might be more “affordable” in terms of purchase price, these homeowners could find themselves making more expensive monthly payments because of today’s high interest rates. With Baby Boomers staying put, there are fewer larger homes available for young families with kids. The prices of homes that do hit the market reflect that scarcity.
All of these factors make it incredibly challenging for a buyer who hasn’t built up equity from a previously purchased home to help cover the expenses.
“It’s taking younger buyers longer to save up for the upfront costs of a home purchase,” says Max Koziol, national purchasing director at Chase Home Lending. With so many younger adults stuck on the sidelines, the average age of buyers rises.
Despite the challenges facing today’s would-be buyers, data from both Chase and Tomo show that Americans still want to buy homes. The underlying problems constraining younger buyers will take time to solve, suggesting that the age of homebuyers will continue to rise in the near future.
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Leslie Cook is Money's lead real estate editor, covering news stories about mortgages and how rate movements affect the housing market and writing and editing stories that inform our readers about real estate trends and how they affect homebuyers and sellers. Leslie writes a weekly newsletter, Money Moves, that covers a wide range of real estate topics in addition to her weekly articles. Her work has been featured on Apple News, MSN and ConsumersAdvocate.org. Leslie has been covering the mortgage and real estate industry at Money since 2019 and has interviewed industry leaders, such as Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, and Glenn Kelman, CEO of brokerage Redfin. She has been a guest on the This Morning with Gordon Deal radio show, interviewed by The Mortgage Note, and served as moderator for ServiceLink’s State of Homebuying webinar. While at Money, Leslie has contributed to several of Money’s rating and ranking features, including Best Places to Live, Best Places to Travel and Changemakers. She has also played a major role in researching and selecting Money’s Best Banks rankings for the past four years. Before joining Money as a staff writer, Leslie was a reporter for Caribbean Business Newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico, covering human resources, telecommunications and computers. She graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in history. The research and interviewing skills learned there have contributed to Leslie’s ability to provide accurate information on her area of expertise and elicit informative responses from her interviewees.