Jonathan Lane was 32 when he closed on a $295,000 condo in Northborough, putting down 10 percent to finally get a foothold in the Greater Boston housing market. Down the highway in Brookline, Matthew Hadeka closed on a three-bedroom condo of his own. In Roslindale, 31-year-old Dianna Bronchuk Duran used inherited funds to make her purchase work. All three are counted among the first-time buyers Boston.com profiled in a look at just how far the region’s entry point into homeownership has moved, and the number at the center of that reporting is stark: the median age of a first-time buyer nationally has climbed to 40, an all-time high.
That figure comes from the National Association of Realtors’ annual buyer survey, which also found that first-time buyers made up just 21% of the market in 2025, the lowest share on record. In Greater Boston, the math behind that shift is unforgiving. Boston.com’s reporting put the cost of a starter home in the Boston metro area at roughly $635,715 as of the first quarter of 2026, which requires an annual income of about $169,970 to finance. The typical renter in the Boston metro earns closer to $76,260 a year.
Fewer and Fewer Homes Fit the Old Definition
Only about 34% of homes in the Boston metro were priced below that $636,000 threshold as of the reporting, and fewer than a quarter came in under $551,000. Real estate agents interviewed for the Boston.com piece describe listings in that category as something closer to relics: properties that need significant work, sit in far-flung commuter towns, or move within days to buyers who waived contingencies entirely.
Statewide data backs up the pressure at the top of the price range too. The Warren Group, which tracks Massachusetts real estate transactions, reported the median single-family home price in the state reached $645,000 in April 2026, up 2.4% from a year earlier, even as the number of homes actually sold fell nearly 2% over the same month.
What Buyers Are Doing Instead
The Boston.com reporting describes a market where first-time buyers increasingly skip the traditional starter-home step altogether and aim straight for a property they can stay in for a decade or more. That shift shows up in how people like Lane, Hadeka, and Bronchuk Duran actually got to closing: a larger-than-typical down payment, help from family funds, or a willingness to take on a condo rather than hold out for a single-family house.
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