The Median First-Time House Purchaser Age Isn’t Actually 40

Final yr, we have been advised that the first-time house purchaser age surged to a report excessive 40 years outdated!

The unhealthy information was delivered by the Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors (NAR) and had housing bears and doomers leaping up and down in delight.

But it surely seems it’s most likely not even true, as many different maybe extra dependable knowledge sources contradict the findings.

In any case, NAR gathered their knowledge through a snail mail survey to provide you with the numbers.

What number of younger persons are responding to and finishing mail survey nowadays?

NAR Claims the First-Time House Purchaser Age Hit a Document Excessive 40 Years Previous in 2025

Based on NAR, the first-time house purchaser age elevated to a not-so-young 40 years outdated in 2025.

Apart from being the best age ever recorded, it was additionally up from 38 in 2024, 35 in 2023, and 33 in 2021.

So one way or the other it leaped seven years in only a few years, after remaining near 30 since 1981.

Sure, we had a mortgage price shock in late 2022 that persevered for the previous few years, together with sky-high house costs.

However even then, it appears sort of far-fetched. And maybe it’s. In any case, the info is predicated on a literal mail survey.

In different phrases, you get one thing within the mail and you’re taking the time to reply to it and ship it again.

What number of younger persons are doing that? Apparently extra again within the day. However right now, most likely not many.

In actual fact, solely about 6,100 house patrons reportedly responded.

Sheer logic would inform us that the older FTHBs could be extra keen to fill out surveys and purchase postage stamps and lick envelopes.

Precise younger individuals? Not going.

Now you may argue that it’s all relative, and in the event that they’ve been utilizing the identical methodology, it’s greater in comparison with prior years, with the identical knowledge assortment.

Countering that’s current house gross sales quantity has been the bottom in 30 years so pattern dimension is perhaps a query mark. And the FTHB share bottomed in 2024 as nicely.

Regardless, we have now precise knowledge from loads of different sources that factors to a lot much less motion in median first-time house purchaser age.

[What Is a Good Price for a First-Time Home Buyer?]

Wait, the First-Time House Purchaser Age Really Dropped Final Yr?

Whereas NAR is doing a bit of little bit of perhaps unintentional dooming, a bunch of different knowledge shops are saying it’s enterprise as traditional.

For instance, the FHFA’s Nationwide Mortgage Database (NMDB), based mostly on thousands and thousands of precise closed mortgage loans, indicated a a lot smaller improve.

Per the MBA, which compiled the info, the median age elevated a lot much less from 30 to 33 years of age by way of 2024, then truly fell to 32 in 2025.

Sure, it moved greater, which once more is sensible given how poor housing affordability grew to become when mortgage charges almost tripled.

However then it retreated, as you’d count on, as soon as charges improved final yr. And if that’s any indication, it ought to enhance once more this yr and fall again into a fairly regular vary.

If that’s not sufficient for you, the MBA additionally thought of FTHB knowledge from Cotality (based mostly on thousands and thousands of house mortgage purposes), which confirmed the median FTHB age primarily flat at 32.

Then there have been the estimates cited in a Washington Submit article offered by analysts utilizing American Housing Survey knowledge from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Once more, these revealed a flat median age of 33 years outdated in 2023, the newest knowledge obtainable.

Equally, an evaluation from the Federal Reserve Financial institution of New York (FRBNY), which relied upon knowledge from the Client Credit score Panel/Equifax, discovered the median age of FTHBs to be 32, 33, and 33 in 2016, 2019, and 2024, respectively.

In different phrases, fairly darn flat. And since affordability is lastly starting to enhance, due to each decrease mortgage charges and flat/decrease house costs, this metric ought to normalize as nicely.

Learn on: 2025 Mortgage Price Predictions From All of the Massive Names