Ask anyone who has bought a house in the past two years how long the search took, and the answer rarely comes quickly. New data on the topic backs that up: the typical American buyer now spends about 10 weeks hunting for a home and walks through roughly seven properties before finally signing a contract, according to the National Association of Realtors’ newly released 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. That’s not a fluke year. It’s the fourth year running that the search has stretched that long, and the trend line tells a bigger story about who is buying homes in 2026 and how hard they’re working to find the right one.
The Search Has Gotten Longer, Not Shorter
A decade ago, house hunting moved faster. NAR’s own survey history shows the median search hovered around eight weeks through 2020 and 2021, back when historically low mortgage rates kept buyers moving fast and inventory, while thin, was easier to beat competitors to. Starting in 2022, that median climbed to 10 weeks and it has not budged since, spanning four straight annual surveys through the one released this fall. HousingWire broke the current figures down further: buyers spend roughly two weeks researching on their own before they ever contact an agent, then continue touring homes for weeks after that, viewing a median of seven properties along the way before landing on the one they buy.
Seven tours over ten weeks does not sound dramatic on its own, but it represents a meaningful shift in behavior. Buyers are no longer walking into a handful of open houses on a single Saturday and making an offer by Monday. They’re treating the search as a longer project, one that includes weeks of scrolling listings, comparing school districts and commute times, and returning to open houses more than once before committing.
Who Is Doing the Searching, and Why It Takes Longer
Part of the explanation is who is buying at all. The same NAR report found the share of first-time buyers fell to just 21 percent, the lowest ever recorded in the survey’s history, while the median age of a first-time buyer climbed to 40 years old. Repeat buyers, meanwhile, hit a median age of 62. Both figures are record highs, and both point to buyers who are older, more financially established, and by extension more selective about what they’re willing to sign a mortgage for. A 40-year-old buyer purchasing a first home after years of renting has different, often stricter, criteria than a 27-year-old buying because friends are doing the same.
Virginia REALTORS, which publishes an annual breakdown of the national NAR data for its members, points to affordability pressure as the other half of the equation. Median down payments for first-time buyers reached 10 percent this year, the highest share since 1989, while repeat buyers put down a median of 23 percent. Buyers stretching to hit those numbers tend to look longer and harder before committing money they’ve spent years saving, comparing more properties and revisiting favorites rather than moving on gut instinct.
Finding the Right Property Is the Hardest Part
NAR’s survey also asked buyers directly what part of the process gave them the most trouble, and the answer wasn’t financing or inspections. It was simply finding a home that fit. Even among successful first-time buyers, “finding the right property” ranked as the single most difficult step in the entire process, ahead of saving for a down payment and understanding paperwork. That lines up with the seven-home median: buyers aren’t struggling to get approved so much as they’re struggling to find a house that checks enough boxes to stop looking.
Despite the longer timeline, satisfaction with the eventual purchase remains high, with the vast majority of buyers reporting they were happy with how the search turned out once they landed on a home. That suggests the extra weeks aren’t wasted time so much as due diligence paying off. Buyers touring seven homes over ten weeks are, in effect, building a mental comparison chart, ruling out properties with the wrong layout or too long a commute until the right one becomes obvious by contrast.
What It Means for Buyers Searching Right Now
For anyone in the middle of a search today, the data offers a useful reality check: if it’s taking longer than expected to find the right house, that’s now the norm rather than a sign something is going wrong. Real estate agents who work with today’s buyers say the ten-week median often includes multiple rounds of revisiting the same one or two favorites before an offer finally goes in, rather than a straight line from first tour to closing table.
Median home tenure has also stretched to 11 years, according to the same NAR report, meaning buyers increasingly view a purchase as a long commitment rather than a short-term stepping stone. That longer horizon appears to be feeding directly into a longer, more deliberate search up front. Seven houses and ten weeks may sound modest against the backdrop of a market this competitive, but for most buyers, it’s the amount of looking it now takes to feel confident signing on the dotted line.
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