The typical American buying a first home last year was 40 years old, matching a record high for the second straight year, as steep prices and interest rates keep younger buyers out of much of the market, new National Association of Realtors data shows.
That median was 28 as recently as 1991. People buying again after a previous purchase also hit a record, with a median age of 62.
A growing slice of first-time buyers skip the mortgage entirely and pay cash, and they skew older still, typically 54, said Jessica Lautz, the association's deputy chief economist and vice president of research. About 1 in 10 first-time buyers now pay cash, usually with the help of an inheritance or other family support.
That’s actually 1 in 10 first-time buyers, so we’re really seeing that generational transfer of wealth
Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist, National Association of Realtors
Where prices bite hardest
Geography matters. Lautz said prices in the Bay Area near San Francisco are still climbing because of the AI boom, while some Rust Belt areas and states that are building a lot of housing offer more reasonable prices.
A separate state ranking released in June, which weighed prices against income and new building permits, put Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina and Nebraska at the top for affordability and home construction. New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii and California landed at the bottom.
Competing measures of age
The Realtors' figure is not the only yardstick. Lautz said counting cash sales is one reason the association's survey shows an older buyer than other measures, such as the New York Federal Reserve Bank's review of mortgage applications.
Federal Reserve data puts the median first-time buyer at 33 for the first half of 2026, roughly unchanged from 2019, said Yanling Mayer, a research economist at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Over the same stretch, the Realtors' survey jumped from 33 to 40.
Mayer said the gap raises the question of whether buyers are leaning on family and friends to get into a home. Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics research at John Burns Research and Consulting, said several surveys last year placed first-time buyers between 35 and 40 and aging, and that the true figure probably falls somewhere in the middle.
