(Brett Rowland, The Center Square) The median age for a first-time home buyer just hit 40, a record high, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.
The median buyer age increased to a peak of 59 years, up from 56 the previous year. The median age of first-time buyers increased to 40 this year from 38 the previous year, while the typical age of repeat buyers also rose to 62 from 61. First-time homebuyers decreased to 21% of the market share, down from 24% last year. That marks the lowest share since NAR began collecting the data in 1981. Before the Great Recession, the historical norm was 40%. The report noted the division in the housing market.
“In the 1980s, the typical first-time home buyer was in their late 20s,” according to NAR’s 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. “The housing market remains divided between an all-time high of all-cash home buyers and an all-time low of first-time buyers.”
Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research, said the implications are “staggering.”
“The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory,” she said. “The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007 – right before the Great Recession. The implications for the housing market are staggering. Today’s first-time buyers are building less housing wealth and will likely have fewer moves over a lifetime as a result.”
Twenty-four percent of all buyers had children under the age of 18 living at home, a historically low percentage. That’s down from 27% last year and from 58% in 1985. This year, 11% of home buyers had one child, 9% had two children, and 5% had three or more children. Thirty-two percent of first-time buyers and 22% of repeat buyers had children under the age of 18.
Seventy-six percent of all buyers had no children under the age of 18 living at home, up from 73% last year.
“Unfolding in the housing market is a tale of two cities,” Lautz said. “We’re seeing buyers with significant housing equity making larger down payments and all-cash offers, while first-time buyers continue to struggle to enter the market.”
White people were more likely to purchase homes than members of other racial groups. Eighty-four percent of recent home buyers identified their ethnicity as White or Caucasian. Another 7% identified as Hispanic/Latino, 6% of recent buyers identified as Black/African American, 4% identified as Asian/Pacific Islander, and 3% identified as a different ethnicity.
Delaying home ownership can cost equity.
“For generations, access to homeownership has been the primary way Americans build wealth and the cornerstone of the American Dream,” said Shannon McGahn, NAR executive vice president and chief advocacy officer. “Delayed or denied homeownership until age 40 instead of 30 can mean losing roughly $150,000 in equity on a typical starter home.”
She said more housing was needed.
“Today, we must focus on policies that address the root cause of the affordability crisis: inadequate housing supply,” McGahn said. “That means both unlocking existing inventory and enabling new construction. We need solutions that encourage more owners to sell, revitalize underused properties, streamline local zoning and permitting barriers, and modernize construction methods to build more homes faster and more affordably. These common sense reforms make homes more affordable, restore opportunity, and help revive the dream of homeownership for generations to come.”
