“The U.S. is starting to see transfer of wealth to younger generations, and those younger generations are using that inheritance to make a smart purchase: a home,” NAR deputy chief economist Jessica Lautz wrote in a blog post.
As well, the credit analysis may tend to count divorced or widowed people as first-time buyers, even if they previously purchased a home with their spouse, if their name was not on the prior mortgage.
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“The U.S. is starting to see transfer of wealth to younger generations, and those younger generations are using that inheritance to make a smart purchase: a home,” NAR deputy chief economist Jessica Lautz said. Rido – stock.adobe.com
Finally, the recent analysis released by Redfin infers first-time buyer age from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement.
That survey does not ask whether someone is a first-time buyer, but does identify homeowners who have moved in the last year, and asks their reasons for doing so. The new analysis considers someone a first-time buyer if they said they moved because they wanted to own a home rather than rent, or to start their own household.
The strength of this approach is that it is based on population-wide survey data and captures both cash buyers and those with mortgages.
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However, this interpretation of the census survey may be mistakenly counting unusual cases as first-time buyers, such as people who inherit homes, or former homeowners who rent for a period and then buy again.
“They are admittedly inferring who is a first-time homebuyer in that data. There’s some noise there,” says Aziz Sunderji, a housing market strategist and founder of Home Economics. “But more importantly, the Census Bureau captures everyone, including all cash buyers, whereas the Fed, because it’s based on credit bureau data, is really only measuring people who use mortgages.”
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Aziz Sunderji, a housing market strategist, says “the median age of first-time homebuyers is increasing” over the last decade. J Bergen/peopleimages.com – stock.adobe.com
Sunderji says that overall, he believes the trend seen in Redfin’s analysis of the census data is reliable, “and indeed the median age of first-time homebuyers is increasing” over the last decade.
Other indications that rookie homeowners are getting older
Setting aside the three studies, separate Census Bureau data on homeownership rates seems to confirm that first-time homebuyers are getting older over time.
In fact, the homeownership rate by age 30 has declined for each generation going back to the baby boomers, according to an analysis of census data by Apartment List.
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The homeownership rate by age 30 has declined for each generation going back to the baby boomers. mast3r – stock.adobe.com
By age 30, 55% of the Silent Generation owned homes, compared with 48% of baby boomers, 42% of Gen X, and just 33% of millennials, the analysis found.
Other census data shows that the homeownership rate for people under age 35 rose steadily from 1994 to 2004, when it peaked at 43.6% ahead of the global financial crisis.
The under-35 homeownership rate plunged through the next decade, reaching a modern low of 34.1% in 2016, at which point virtually every adult under age 35 was a millennial.
Millennials clearly delayed homeownership compared with Gen X, but since 2016 the under-35 homeownership rate has been more volatile than it had previously been.
The rate spiked in 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then dropped off sharply after interest rates surged in 2022.
More recently, the under-35 homeownership rate surged in the second half of 2025, perhaps reflecting a rise in home purchases that had been otherwise delayed for several years due to affordability constraints.
Because the NAR survey covers the 12 months ending in June of the survey year, it would not capture the late-2025 increase in younger homeownership seen in the census data.
