The rising age of first-time homebuyers has dominated housing market discourse in recent months—and many sources offer varying estimates of how old a first-time buyer really is.
Last year, the National Association of Realtors® reported, based on survey data, that the average age of first-time buyers reached 40. That’s the highest age on record, and up from 33 just five years earlier.
That figure is widely cited by politicians, and is a simple summary to capture the painful homelessness struggles that many first-time homebuyers face on the market.
But not everyone agrees with the NAR’s calculation. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York used estimates based on credit reports showing the trending age of first-time buyers below later it reached 36.3 in 2024, down from about 38 in 2000.
Recently, a different estimate based on US Census Bureau data was released by Redfin, which asserted that the average first-time buyer was 35 years old last year—down from 36 in 2024, but up from 34 a decade earlier.
The disparate estimates highlight the difficulty of accurately identifying the age of the first buyer, with each of the various methods used in the three studies carrying specific advantages and disadvantages.
“Like many seemingly simple questions, the first-time home buyer question can be confusing,” says Realtor.com® Chief Economist. Danielle Hale. “Yes, a family that has never bought a home is a first-time home buyer, but what about a family that had one, then rented it for a few years before buying again? By some standards, this family would be considered a first-time buyer.”
How each analysis is performed
NAR has surveyed primary home buyers periodically since 1981 by asking them “was this your first home purchase?”
This survey method is the most accurate way to estimate the age of first-time buyers, but it faces challenges due to its response rate and sample size.
In 2025, NAR sent 173,250 questionnaires, which were also completed online, but had a response rate of 3.5%. Of the responses, only 1,281 were from self-reporting first-time consumers, making for a very small sample.
This has led some to question whether the survey results may sway older people in general, with younger homebuyers less likely to complete the 120-question survey.
However, NAR has been conducting its research consistently for decades, and had an even lower response rate in 2024 (3.2%), when it reported the average age of first-time buyers as 38. If responses are skewed by age, that skew would have to change over time to underestimate the overall trend.
Meanwhile, the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel report is based on a nationally representative sample of 5% of all credit reports dating back to 1999. Buyers are recorded as first-time buyers when they show a loan liability on their credit report for the first time.
Although this approach avoids survey response rate problems, it has some notable drawbacks. Most importantly, and like other studies based on mortgage data, it leaves out any buyers who pay cash.
Perhaps surprisingly, the NAR says that last year, 8% of first-time buyers used cash to buy a home. Those first-time buyers may tend to be older than rookie home owners with a mortgage.
“America is starting to see the transfer of wealth to younger generations, and those younger generations are using that legacy to make a smart purchase: a home,” NAR’s deputy chief economist. Jessica Lautz wrote in a blog post.
Also, credit analysis may tend to count divorced or widowed people as first-time buyers, even if they bought a home with their spouse, if their name was not on the previous mortgage.
Finally, the latest analysis released by Redfin reveals the age of first-time buyers from the US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement.
That survey doesn’t ask if someone is a first-time buyer, but it identifies homeowners who have moved in the past year, and asks them why they did so. A new analysis considers a person as a first-time buyer if they say they moved because they want to own a home rather than rent, or start their own home.
The strength of this method is that it is based on large-scale survey data and captures both homebuyers and mortgage holders.
However, this interpretation of the census survey may miscount unusual situations such as first-time buyers, people who inherit houses, or former homeowners who rent for a period and then buy again.
“It is admitted that they look at who is the first time to buy a house in that data. There is noise there,” he said. Aziz Sunderjihousing market strategist and founder of Home Economics. “But more importantly, the Census Bureau captures everyone, including all mortgage buyers, and the Fed, because it’s based on credit bureau data, is actually only measuring people who use mortgages.”
Sunderji says that overall, he believes the trend seen in Redfin’s analysis of census data is reliable, “and indeed the average age of first-time homebuyers is increasing” over the past decade.
Some signs that rookie homeowners are on the rise
Putting these three studies aside, separate Census Bureau data on home ownership rates seem to confirm that first-time homebuyers are increasing over time.
In fact, the rate of homeownership by age 30 has declined with each generation going back to the baby boomers, according to an analysis of census data by the Housing Index.
By age 30, 55% of the Silent Generation owned households, compared to 48% of baby boomers, 42% of Gen X, and just 33% of millennials, the analysis found.
Some census data shows that the homeownership rate for people under 35 rose slightly from 1994 to 2004, when it peaked at 43.6% before the global financial crisis.
The under-35 homeownership rate declined over the next decade, reaching a modern low of 34.1% in 2016, at which point nearly every adult under 35 was a millennial.
Millennials have clearly delayed homeownership compared to Gen X, but as of 2016 the rate of homeowners under the age of 35 has been more volatile than ever.
The rate increased in 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then decreased significantly after the interest rate hike in 2022.
Most recently, the under-35 home ownership rate increased in the second quarter of 2025, perhaps reflecting an increase in home purchases that had been delayed for several years due to affordability issues.
Because the NAR survey covers the 12 months ending in June of the survey year, it will not capture the recent 2025 increase in minority homeownership seen in the census data.
