The housing market affordability crunch is having a significant impact on the demographic makeup of home buyers. According to the 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers from the National Association of Realtors, two related trends developed in the past year: the share of first-time home buyers dropped to a record low while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high.
First-time buyers accounted for just 21% of home purchase transactions between July 2024 and June 2025 while the age of first-time buyers increased to 40 years.
“The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007—right before the Great Recession,” says Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research. “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.”
First-time buyers who are successful in purchasing cite high rent and student loans as the two prominent factors that limit them from saving. The NAR says “elite” first-time buyers are most likely to use personal savings (59%) or financial assets (26%) for their down payment. In previous years of the Home Buyers and Sellers report, a gift or a loan from a friend or relative was more common among first-time buyers than financial assets. Among first-time buyers, the median down payment was 10% in the past year, matching the highest level recorded by the NAR since 1989.
While the market is constrained for first-time buyers, repeat buyers are successfully able to leverage housing equity to be more competitive in the market. According to the NAR, among repeat buyers the median downpayment was 23%. Thirty percent of repeat buyers paid case and did not finance their home purchase at all.
“Unfolding in the housing market is a tale of two cities,” says Lautz. “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.”
Repeat buyers are also getting older. According to the report, repeat buyers had a median age of 62, the highest recorded by the NAR. Among buyers, the quality of neighborhood and convenience to friends and family rank as the most important considerations, usurping proximity to a home buyer’s job.
Among all buyers, 61% are married coupled, 21% are single women, and nine percent are single men. Among first-time buyers, 25% of buyers are single women and 10% are single men. The share of buyers with children under the age of 18 fell to an all-time low of just 24%.
The NAR attributes the lower share of this buyer to overall reduction in birth rates and a rise in older repeat buyers. Additionally, younger buyers cite childcare expenses as a barrier to saving for a down payment.
“For generations, access to homeownership has been the primary way Americans build wealth and the cornerstone of the American Dream,” says Shannon McGahn, NAR executive vice president and chief advocacy officer. “Delayed or denied ownership until age 40 instead of 30 can mean losing roughly $150,000 in equity on a typical started home.”
The median household income for home buyers rose to $109,000 in 2024 while first-time buyers had a median household income of $94,400. The share of buyers with household incomes below $74,999 was 29%.
According to the NAR, 12% of buyers purchased a new home in 2024 while 88% purchases a resale home. Buyers who purchased a new home were looking to avoid renovations and problems with plumbing or electricity. Detached single-family homes were the most commonly home purchased at 76%, following be townhomes or row houses at 7%. The average size of a home purchased in 2024 was 1,900 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
For home buyers, the median distance between the home purchased and the home moved from was 20 miles, down from 50 miles as recently as 2022. Forty-four percent of all buyers purchased in a suburb or subdivision while 24% purchased in a small town.
The 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers generated responses from 173,250 recent home buyers between July 2024 and June 2025.
