First-Time Home Buyer Age and Buyer Statistics: 2026 Report

When a renter finally lines up a down payment and a rate lock, the next question is often whether people like them are still buying at all, and at what age. The answer depends on how "first-time buyer" is defined, whether cash purchases count, and which survey or credit-panel sample you use. A single median age can mix a Realtor association mail survey of primary-residence buyers with a credit-panel measure of first mortgage borrowers, and those two series do not move in lockstep.

We compiled these figures from six sources covering survey years and mortgage vintages from roughly 2022 through fiscal year 2025, as of October 2026: National Association of Realtors (NAR) free press releases for the 2024 and 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (full Profile PDFs restrict reprinting without permission, so only attributed press-release figures are used here); Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics research based on the New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Annual Report to Congress on the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund for fiscal year 2025; and 2025 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) purchase-origination microdata from the FFIEC Data Browser. NAR's 2025 Profile press release puts the median age of first-time primary-residence buyers at 40 for purchases from July 2024 through June 2025. The New York Fed's August 2025 update puts the median age of first-time mortgage borrowers at 33 in calendar 2024 (average 36.3). Those are different populations and should not be averaged together. HMDA has applicant age bins but no first-time-buyer flag, so the HMDA table below is all home-purchase borrowers by age, not first-time buyers alone.

Median Age of First-Time Home Buyers: 2024 to 2025

This table answers the main question: the median age of first-time home buyers, with the source and period stated for each row.

Sources: NAR, First-Time Home Buyer Share Falls to Historic Low of 21%, Median Age Rises to 40, November 4, 2025; Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy, "Who Is Still on First? An Update of Characteristics of First-Time Homebuyers," Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, August 11, 2025. NAR figures are as reported in the free press release summarizing the 2025 Profile; the full Profile PDF states it may not be reprinted without permission. The New York Fed series identifies first-time buyers from credit-report mortgage history and excludes all-cash purchases.

NAR's Profile covers owner-occupant primary-residence buyers who responded to a mail survey and can include cash buyers. The New York Fed series is built from a 5 percent sample of credit reports and counts a first-time buyer when the borrower has no prior mortgage on file. Affordability pressure, inventory, and student debt can shift both series, but response bias in a long mail survey and the exclusion of cash deals in credit data pull the medians apart. For related closing-cost context that first-time buyers face at the table, see average mortgage closing costs by state.

First-Time Buyer Share of Purchases: 2023 to 2025

First-time share answers a different question from age: what portion of recent buyers (or of a loan program's purchase volume) are entering ownership for the first time.

Sources: NAR Nov. 4, 2025 press release; NAR, First-Time Home Buyers Shrink to Historic Low of 24% as Buyer Age Hits Record High, November 4, 2024; HUD, FHA Annual Report to Congress on the Financial Status of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, Fiscal Year 2025. FHA defines a first-time homebuyer as someone with no ownership in a principal residence during the three-year period ending on the purchase date (including spouses under FHA's rule). FHA shares describe FHA-insured purchase endorsements only, not the entire U.S. purchase market. NAR Profile shares are as reported in free press releases.

A February 2025 Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics post notes that credit-panel measures of first-time share of purchase mortgages have trended differently from the Profile survey share; this piece cites only ages from the New York Fed series that appear as explicit figures in the August 2025 post. FHA's high first-time share reflects its role in low-down-payment purchase lending, not a claim that most U.S. buyers use FHA.

First-Time Buyer Median Age Trend: Profile Years 2023 to 2025

The Profile press releases also publish year-to-year median ages for first-time, repeat, and all buyers, which lets the age trend sit beside the share figures without opening the restricted full report.

Sources: NAR Nov. 4, 2025 press release; NAR Nov. 4, 2024 press release. The 2023 row uses the prior-year figures the 2024 press release states in parentheses. Ages and shares are as reported by NAR in those free releases, not independently re-surveyed.

All Buyers Versus First-Time and Repeat Buyers: 2025 Profile

The 2025 Profile press release separates median age for all buyers, first-time buyers, and repeat buyers in the same survey window.

Source: NAR Nov. 4, 2025 press release. Figures as reported in the free press release summarizing the 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

Repeat buyers in that survey often bring sale proceeds or equity into the next purchase; first-time buyers more often finance with smaller down payments. Title and settlement charges that show up beside the mortgage are covered separately in title insurance cost.

Home-Purchase Borrower Age Distribution: HMDA 2025

HMDA reports applicant age in fixed bins for mortgage applications. It does not flag first-time buyers, so this table is the age mix of originated home-purchase borrowers, not a first-time-buyer age distribution.

Source: Calculated from the 2025 HMDA home-purchase loan application register (activity year 2025), same core loan filters as the index mortgage-closing-cost analysis. Filters: action taken = loan originated; loan purpose = home purchase; lien status = first lien; not an open-end line of credit; not a reverse mortgage; not primarily for a business or commercial purpose; site-built; occupancy = principal residence; total units 1–4; state in the 50 states or District of Columbia; applicant age in a reported bin (codes such as 8888 excluded). N = 2,774,927 loans. HMDA has no first-time-buyer field; bins cover all such purchase borrowers. Shares may not sum to 100.0 because of rounding.

Younger bins dominate financed purchases in this cut, which is compatible with a New York Fed median in the early thirties and still compatible with an older NAR survey median if older and cash-heavy respondents are over-represented in the Profile mail sample. Statewide mortgage cost packages that include more than age are in average closing costs by state.

What the First-Time Buyer Age Data Show

First-time buyer age depends on the measuring stick: a Realtor association survey of recent primary-residence buyers and a Federal Reserve credit-panel measure of first mortgage borrowers answer the same keyword with different medians. Watch the next NAR Profile press release and the next New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel update for whether those series stay apart or move together.

Sources

1. National Association of Realtors, "First-Time Home Buyer Share Falls to Historic Low of 21%, Median Age Rises to 40," November 4, 2025, https://www.nar.realtor/press-releases/first-time-home-buyer-share-falls-to-historic-low-of-21-median-age-rises-to-40
2. National Association of Realtors, "First-Time Home Buyers Shrink to Historic Low of 24% as Buyer Age Hits Record High," November 4, 2024, https://www.nar.realtor/press-releases/first-time-home-buyers-shrink-to-historic-low-of-24-as-buyer-age-hits-record-high
3. Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy, "Who Is Still on First? An Update of Characteristics of First-Time Homebuyers," Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, August 11, 2025, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/08/who-is-still-on-first-an-update-of-characteristics-of-first-time-homebuyers/
4. Donghoon Lee and Joseph Tracy, "Are First-Time Home Buyers Facing Desperate Times?," Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics, February 3, 2025, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/02/are-first-time-home-buyers-facing-desperate-times/
5. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, FHA Annual Report to Congress Fiscal Year 2025 Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, https://www.hud.gov/sites/default/files/Housing/documents/2025FHAAnnualReportMMIFund.pdf
6. Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) / Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data Browser, 2025 Snapshot loan-level data (home-purchase originations; age-bin shares calculated for this report), https://ffiec.cfpb.gov/data-browser/data/2025

Figures are shown as published by the sources named under each table. How we source and correct: editorial and corrections policy. Spotted an error? Contact us.

Release dates for these sources: Data release calendar.