First-Time Buyers Fell to About 21% of Purchases, a Record Low in NAR's Generational Series

The generational split

The National Association of Realtors published its Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report on April 15, 2026, covering transactions completed between July 2024 and June 2025. It put the first-time buyer share at 21 percent, down from 24 percent the previous year and the lowest since the association began tracking the measure in 1981.

Baby boomers were 42 percent of all buyers, unchanged. Generation X rose to 25 percent from 24 percent, Generation Z to 4 percent from 3 percent, and millennials fell to 26 percent from 29 percent. The silent generation held at 4 percent.

The median first-time buyer was 40 years old, an all-time high. The median repeat buyer was 62 and the median buyer overall was 59.

What a low first-time share does to the market

First-time buyers are the base of the transaction chain. A move-up purchase usually requires a sale, and that sale usually requires someone entering the market for the first time. When the entry share falls, chains shorten and total transaction volume falls faster than any single measure of demand would suggest.

It also changes the composition of what sells. Buyers who are not financing a first purchase are less rate-sensitive — boomers in particular are more likely to pay cash or to carry large equity from a prior home — which sustains activity at the upper end of the price distribution while the entry level stalls. That composition effect is one reason median sale prices set records in 2026 while repeat-sales indices showed appreciation of only one to two percent.

The arithmetic behind the shift

Three conditions compounded across 2026: a 30-year survey rate that reached 6.95 percent by mid-September, national repeat-sales price levels that had not fallen materially from their peaks, and an FHA delinquency rate near 12 percent that reflects the thin equity position of recent low-down-payment borrowers.

Analysis: a first-time share at a record low is a structural signal rather than a cyclical one. It can reverse quickly if financing costs fall, because the underlying population of would-be buyers has not disappeared — but nothing in NAR's data indicates that reversal had begun by mid-2026.

Down payments and where the money comes from

First-time buyers put down a median of 10 percent, matching the highest level since 1989. Repeat buyers put down 23 percent, and 30 percent of repeat buyers paid all cash.

Among first-time buyers, 59 percent drew on personal savings, 26 percent liquidated financial assets including retirement accounts, stocks and cryptocurrency, and 22 percent received a gift or loan from family or friends. Nearly a quarter of entrants to homeownership are therefore relying on a transfer of family wealth, which is the mechanism by which housing inequality compounds across generations.

Student debt remains concentrated among the youngest cohort: 39 percent of younger millennials carried a median balance of $30,000, against 27 percent of older millennials at a median of $40,000.

What happened to the sellers

Baby boomers were 55 percent of all sellers. The median seller had owned the home for 11 years before selling, an all-time high, and moved a median of 30 miles, down from 35.

Tenure is the supply-side counterpart to the first-time buyer share. Every additional year an owner stays put removes a listing from the market, and an 11-year median is roughly double the tenure typical in the 1980s. Multigenerational purchases were 14 percent of buyers, down from 17 percent, most often cited as a response to caring for an ageing parent (41 percent) or to cost savings (29 percent).

About the source

The report is a survey, not an administrative count. NAR mailed a 120-question questionnaire to 173,250 recent buyers in July 2025 and received 6,103 usable responses from primary-residence buyers, an adjusted response rate of 3.5 percent. The association states a confidence interval of plus or minus 1.25 percentage points at 95 percent confidence.

A 3.5 percent response rate leaves room for non-response bias that a confidence interval does not capture. The direction of the series is nonetheless consistent across years of identical methodology, which is what makes the record-low reading credible.