Posted on 11/07/2025 6:09:57 AM PST by yesthatjallen
The share of first-time home buyers dropped to a record low of 21%, while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high of 40 years, according to the National Association of REALTORS®' 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. This annual survey of recent home buyers and sellers covers transactions between July 2024 and June 2025 and offers industry professionals, consumers, and policymakers detailed insights into homebuying and selling behavior.
"The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory," said Jessica Lautz NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research. "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."
"Unfolding in the housing market is a tale of two cities," Lautz explained. "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."
"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. FHA and VA programs have helped millions of Americans access homeownership, join the middle class, and create intergenerational wealth – a testament to smart government policy in support of homeownership."
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(Excerpt) Read more at nar.realtor ...
Thank you Sierra Club and Democrat Party.
Lower the price of land and construction.
Change zoning and eliminate stupid enviro rules and a ton of land goes in the market.
Lower regs on products that go into a house, most notably lumber harvest restrictions to increase supply and lower cost.
Eliminate all the racist stuff that banks have to comply with to make sure they are not “discriminating “ against unfit borrowers who happen to be black which will lower the costs of loans (and lessen defaults).
Remove regs that require fake “green” HvAC ( like no freon) and raise cost of appliances.
The Buck Stops Here.
Trump is going to get the blame, though he doesn’t deserve it.
yeah, I bought my first house when I was 26 and now that house is worth over 300k. Importing a gadzillion legal immigrants didn’t help, either, don’t see how they can afford it.
I blame the education system.
If I had known what I know NOW, I’d have 4 homes and be much better off than I am now.
And right now I’m pretty well off with my two homes.
What about Blackrock buying up residential properties and selling them back to itself, inflating the price of new homes?
These equity firms do unfortunately affect the housing market. Their being in the market as they are , helps constrict the supply of houses available for people who want to buy a house to live in the house.
So based on supply and demand, that will force the rest of us to have to pay more for a house.
I know I have oversimplified it here, but this is definitely part of what’s happening in the housing market.
It doesn’t matter. The average idiot will still blame it all on Trump.
When you let 100M people into your country over a period of just 50 years, it’s little surprise that there’s a “housing shortage”.
The US is a small fraction of the overall world population. If we simply let 7B people come here at will, there will ALWAYS be a “housing shortage”.
Ending mass immigration is one way to reserve space for American kids, not India or China or Africa or South America’s people.
And please don’t spam me with the “whole world can live in Texas” meme. It’s juvenile and merely spatial, you couldn’t actually do anything like that and we don’t want to live in Calcutta anyway.
Such is what happens when governments reduce interest rates over the last 15 years and house prices skyrocket.
Additionally, when governments promote off-shoring of manufacturing to foreign countries over the last 35 years, good paying jobs are gone.
So I am not surprised that the average first-home-buyer age is now 40 years.
“””yeah, I bought my first house when I was 26 and now that house is worth over 300k.”””
Likewise for me, I bought first house at age 26 for $44,000 and according to Zillow is now worth more than $2 million.
My husband and I - two humble teachers - we able to afford a nice home in California in the early 90s. That same home is now worth $1.5 million in today’s market. We’d be able to afford nothing now.
My son works in tech with a salary over $150k, his wife in real estate management does OK too. Homes in this state are unaffordable for them.
“””If we simply let 7B people come here at will, there will ALWAYS be a “housing shortage”.”””
Mass immigration hits two ways.
1. Creates a housing shortage so prices go up.
2. Reduces the wages of American Citizens.
First time homeowners cannot get past the 6 1/2 to 7% interest rate. They were so spoiled by their parents buying homes at 2 1/2 to 3%. That’s what they think they should get. Older homeowners understand that this is still good compared to the rates in 2000 for example which were about 9%. And in the late 70s when they were 15%.
This is a socialist, anti-capitalist red herring.
We’re talking less than 0.5% by *all such* firms.
The rate of “investor-owned” properties was higher 40 years ago, before the 1986 tax bill changed mortgage interest deductibility, limiting it to primary homes.
This data over the long haul is a function of two things:
1) Plummeting marriage rates. Easier to afford a home on two incomes than one.
2) Unwillingness of buyers to look outside of their “preferred” areas.
Both are a function of individual choice - particularly the latter. If first-time homebuyers *insist* their first home has to be a townhome in Brooklyn, condo in Miami, or SFH in bazillion dollar California? I can’t help you.
There are great deals to be had all over in places like Ohio and the plains - and I guarantee folks, there are jobs in Omaha, Kansas City, etc to be had with affordable first homes nearby.
Hey, I believe in personal choice and freedom - so absolutely, if you insist on living in a HCOL area? You’re going to pay HCOL prices and they’re likely beyond the means of a first-time homebuyer. That’s your choice. It’s nobody’s job to “fix” that - certainly not the government’s job.
I do agree that those HCOL areas could lower costs by cutting regulations/zoning/barriers to building, so I suppose THAT would be the (local) government’s job to do less... but ultimately, people have a choice: Either pay the premium or consider areas where you don’t have to pay a premium.
Right now MAGA has a chance to do something about it. I'd force Blackrock and the banks out of owning residential real estate, I'd ban non resident aliens from owning residential real estate and loosening any environmental regulations that hinder home building would be good steps. State and local governments need to ease strict zoning restrictions. Also, getting more younger Americans in good paying jobs by slashing H1Bs, imposing tariffs on foreign goods and deporting all the illegal aliens are positive steps.
Cantillon Effects.
California’s prices are insane. I had a buddy in business school....CPA, with four years of big 4 experience. He got hired by Silicon Valley Bank as a VP straight out of business school. His wife was a paralegal. With their combined salaries, they could not afford to buy a house in Silicon Valley.
This was 25 years ago.
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