Young home shoppers still priced out without help, according to survey

The age of the typical first-time homebuyer last year remained stuck at a historic high of 40 years old as younger people continue to get the worst of brutally high prices and interest rates in much of the country.

That’s according to new data from the National Association of Realtors, and it’s the second year in a row that the median price of first-time buyers was 40, after being as low as 28 years old in 1991. 

An increasing number of first-time homebuyers are using all cash rather than taking a mortgage, and those are even older, typically 54, said Jessica Lautz, the association’s deputy chief economist and vice president of research. Cash purchases are usually because of inheritances or other family help. 

“That’s actually 1 in 10 first-time buyers, so we’re really seeing that generational transfer of wealth,” Lautz said of cash offers. Repeat homebuyers also remained at a median 62 years old, also an all-time high, according to the report. 

First-time homebuyers face hurdles despite gradual improvement

The Bay Area near San Francisco is an area where prices are still escalating because of the AI boom, Lautz said, though some Rust Belt areas and states building a lot of housing are seeing more reasonable prices. 

A realtor.com report in June ranked Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina and Nebraska highest for affordability and homebuilding rates, based on prices compared to income and new building permits. 

At the bottom: New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii and California. 

Including cash sales is one reason the National Association of Realtors’ survey of homebuyers found a higher median age than other surveys, such as the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s review of mortgage applications, Lautz said. 

The Federal Reserve pegs the median age at 33 for first-time buyers for the first six months of 2026, said Yanling Mayer, a research economist for the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. That’s about the same as in 2019, while the Realtors’ association survey — which includes cash purchases —  recorded a jump from 33 years old in 2019, to 40 for the past two years. 

“We’re certainly not brushing aside the challenges facing first-time homebuyers,” Mayer said. “Are they finding other means to achieve home ownership? Help from family, help from friends?” 

There were several surveys last year that generally showed first-time buyers at between 35 and 40 years old and getting older, said Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics research for John Burns Research and Consulting.

“The answer is probably somewhere in the middle,” Finnigan said.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at [email protected].