The typical first-time homebuyer in America is now 40 years old, the oldest that figure has ever been recorded, according to the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, a survey of more than 6,100 recent buyers covering transactions from July 2024 through June 2025. First-time buyers made up just 21% of the market over that period, a historic low, and their share has contracted by roughly half since 2007, the year before the housing crash.
NAR deputy chief economist Jessica Lautz laid out what the numbers mean in the association’s own press release: “The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007, right before the Great Recession.” She also pointed to the financial cost of that delay, saying delayed or denied homeownership until age 40 instead of 30 can mean losing roughly $150,000 in equity on a typical starter home.
A Trend Public Radio Picked Up On
Marketplace examined the same climbing-age trend in its own reporting, tracing it back to the compounding effect of higher mortgage rates and home prices arriving at the same time that many younger adults are already delaying marriage and children. Other measures of the housing market tell a similar story even when they don’t land on the exact same number; Zillow has put the typical prospective first-time buyer closer to 39.
What’s Driving the Delay
Lautz described a market increasingly split between buyers who already have significant home equity to leverage and those who don’t. NAR’s survey also found that down payments have climbed to their highest share of the purchase price since 1989, at roughly 10% of a home’s total cost, meaning the amount of cash a first-time buyer needs to have saved before they can even start shopping has grown right alongside the age at which they’re finally ready to buy.
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