Hard to know. The percent of population in the 20-35 age bracket is lower than in the past so to some extent that’s going to kick up the age of first timers. Need to see how percentage of those in the younger age group who own homes compares to same age bracket % who owned homes in past
That is insane. I bought my first, and only, house about 25 years ago when I was 31. It looks like I was younger than the median homebuyer back then, but a lot of my friends were buying homes at the same time I did.
I can't even fathom buying a house for the first time in my 50s.
Oh, this is median age, not first time home buyers.
Wild that people with no college degrees were able to buy homes and somehow afford childcare and still have money to send kids to college. That was only 60-70 years ago.
Now you have to be past child bearing age to afford first home?
You can't make mistakes. You have to pair up with an educated person on a growth career track with no debt obligations and save together for about 10 years. You have to be 21 with the maturity of a 45 year old and find someone on the same page. Good luck.
Sad. I was able to buy my first home at age 24. It was during the period when interest rates were 12% or higher. It was small, half of a duplex with 2 bedrooms, but it got me started. The local government had programs to help buyers with interest rates and down payments.
Interesting, but I *think* more interesting would be median age of "first time home buyers", no? Because it's probably less interesting to know that people are swapping houses or moving or buying a vacation home. More interesting to know when in life people can buy their first home?
I am on the lookout for how the oligarchs and large companies try and stop this wealth transfer. Also Americans wouldn't have to hoard cash if they thought they would have dignified end of life care.
Or just have any kind of retirement. Need to have hundreds of thousands in retirement accounts at a minimum to supplement SS enough to put together a decent standard of living in retirement.
Yep but our fearless leader wants to invest in beachfront property in Gaza of all places… yep he really is for the little guy… particularly while grifting their social security checks or selling them sine trashy products from shoes to cologne… BS bitcoin scams!
So sick of boomers ignoring the data and shifting the blame for housing inequality and stagnant wages to the younger generations. Five minutes of Googling would demonstrate how they have irresponsibly they have fucked over their kids and grandkids.
Ok, I'll take the bait!
We are sick of millenials, Gen z bitching that everything is our fault for YOUR lazy, lack of education and can't seem to cope with a real world. I think there should have been a mandatory 2 year military enlistment... wod have got the discipline so many never got an needed!
Being a soldier is not easy, but working with volunteers is certainly easier than a conscripted force. My take is that the US error was in shipping all its manufacturing jobs overseas. In so doing people have been left with fewer satisfying career choices.
Of course. I guess I could have changed the "enlistment" to "subscription". So it covers military and those volunteer positions. Nothing wrong with that.
It's much more simple. See you took all the houses and then made it illegal to make more because you thought it would hurt your net worth. All that shit you're complaining about is irrelevant.
I don't need a scale from the Pew Center to argue 'what the f**k I am saying'. Most of you didn't live through all of those generations. I had some bad choices of words in my first reply... but I clarified myself on the tons of rebuttals. READ THEM before YOU spew your bullsh!t. Also, calm down!
Your generation voted for Reagan. The cost of housing and education is 10x. The income inequality is out of control. Why are you attacking the Dem base instead of republicans?
Why are you attacking me? I didn't vote for Reagan. I've NEVER voted for a republican president in my life, and I am independent. I know the income gap is out of control. Throwing the dagger at seniors isn't going to go over well. Flash! We are in this TOGETHER!
Did you reply with that same tone to the original poster that rifled blames of housing and wages on seniors? This platform IS becoming Twitter 2.0 if they allow all this negativity, then when it is called out, we are the problem.
I didn't start the thread OR the attack. Blaming seniors for income/housing gap issues isn't going over well! Sure the housing market is bad now. BUT! we were forced to buy low quality homes w/ 12% interest. Try that hat on for size.
Nothing said FACTS. This medium is opinions, not facts. Also, perhaps common sense plays a factor. In both military and civilian fed, I've seen high educated all around.. but that didn't help with real life situations. Long term exp could.
The boomers could work a few shifts a week at the plant under the summer and pay off college and a new Corvette and that degree guaranteed them a private office and a secretary and a 1 income lifestyle and a lake house lmao
You could have just made one stupid point but then you went ahead and made even more! You should sit this one out. It’s okay to be wrong, you don’t also have to come across as a jerk!
This has to be understood in relation to the median age. EG, the median age of homebuyer in 2000 was 37. So, how far are 37 and 56 from the median age of all Americans in those respective years? A z-score (or the equivalent) is needed. A measure of how above or below the mean age of all Americans.
With tariffs & costs of housing going up & Congress raising debt ceiling, this will keep the young from being able to ever afford a house.
It’s not right & makes all of us responsible.
I’m finally at the point (56) that I can afford my first house, but I’m terrified of taking on that debt during the Musk Trump destroying government term.
Dayyam. I am sad
As a late boomer it truly is boomers' fault. Cannibalistic cannibalism is real. I watched the boomers before me rack up rents and prices "it's what the market will bear" while their children couldn't rent or buy. The lack of self reflection was breathtaking.
I mean...older pple downsize or move to retirement meccas. I see that 1st timers average age is up to 38, but I'm not sure a big ol' gulp of downsizers/migrators in a large, older cohort means what pple seem to think it means LOL
I had the same thought, so I went and looked up median age in the USA by year. Median age has increased by almost exactly 10.0 years since 1980, but obviously the age of homebuyers has gone up a lot more. So median age of the population explains part of it, but not all of it.
I think the biggest issue is the growth of home purchases solely for the purpose of renting them out. Once the Great Recession hit, companies gobbled up homes from foreclosure, and exacerbated the housing shortage. People are RENTING small home for more than double my mortgage payment! Unreal.
Everyone likes to make noise about "Corporate investors" gobbling up the single family home market and they think wall street and private equity, when its actually homeowners creating LLCs with better credit and better savings and buying passive income properties.
An embarrassing statistic about concentration of wealth and shutting out of a generation. I also look at my own block and see the plethora of large 3-4 bedroom homes occupied by a retired couple with no intention of moving or downsizing. This is problematic of housing.
younger generations and those who have not already amassed considerable amounts of
wealth are locked out of housing market, and we have a bifurcated market: expensive homes/townhomes or tiny low quality apartments
Neither of my grandparents had a college degree, one was a dietician and one was a janitor. In their 20’s they BOUGHT a house in Miami and had money left over to save and send their son to college.
Now 20 year old work 2 jobs and live at home and still can’t afford homes.
It's not even that. If you've got a self-amortizing loans, you need a term length to know what the amortization schedule is. 30 years as the duration is mostly about trying to minimize the monthly payment.
Private equity and corporations own over 40% of US housing market. That is why homes are expensive, not because of more people or not enough homes or Airbnb’s or any of the 💩 private equity and corporations allow people to believe.
If a corp is buying something it should be in a commercial zone.
Housing is more unaffordable due to corporate buying like Vance's Acretracker that buys up farmland. Elizabeth Warren has been working on some of this. After the corporations buy it, they use an app that continually increases / arbitrage rent
I read he funded it and it is used by foreign buyers to buy US farm land. The corporations buying single family homes and other properties for rent are other large corporations like KKR. One stat says almost 1/4 of single family homes were bought by these corps in 2022 locking out individual buyers
I have a tiny bit of experience in renting agricultural land. The only thing I can say is that the rents are not what they’re advertising. They must be expecting inflation if they’re trying to buy dirt/not have money in dollars.
The main problem with that strategy is = illiquidity
Interesting. I think it's two different things. Buying up our family farms to consolidate our food supply under foreign hands seems wrong & cutting USAID to help, worse. Two - allowing corporations to control 1/4 of housing esp in certain neighborhoods edging out first time home buyers also wrong
The combination of a market where most people are locked in at low 30 year rates combined with current rates being much higher continues to freeze out young people from getting on the property ladder...
Does this just track the baby boomers? I mean this can only explain so much, granted, but could part of this just be the size of the baby boomer generation and our demographics getting older? The trend is pretty consistent for decades.
The boomers are known as the ME generation for a reason. I’ve been staring up their aresholes for 60 years . And y’all’s voted them in one more time to finish us off. Sigh . Signed the last boomer. Time for a generation change
JFC- that's not good. I wonder if anyone has done a good hard scrub of how many homes in a area are owned by corporations or one owner (Air BNB/ VRBO/ Landlord).
1/2
Young couples should first look at buying property. Nothing more than a couple of acres. Tighten your belt and finance it for as short a term as possible. Five years of severe belt-tightening. Then, build small. If you think you need 3,000 sq. ft. make it 1,500.
In about 1985 I bought a fine old place built at the turn of the century, huge Spanish moss laden oak trees out front, Acadian style, plus 13 acres of land with three fenced pastures for $31,000. Doing the work myself, I put another $10,000 or so in plumbing, electrical, and painting.
aside from land and availability cost, you also have no idea how much building costs
i actually bought land in a very rural area & will build on it. getting the electrical hookup ($30K per pole), septic, and a well will cost probably $100k+.
The smartest thing I ever did was finance for ten years. It was tough as hell. Not much left for extras like a traveling vacation. That ten years passed by very fast and getting that cancelled mortgage was like getting a newborn. They rest of our lives have been easy-peasy. No rent, no mortgage.
You sir, are either uninformed or a monster, I’ll assume uninformed, so here goes,
Currently younger generations aren’t competing with their neighbors to buy homes, they’re competing with corporations….
2/2
Your family will be gone before you know it. If you can, contract the house and get it built as quickly as possible due to inflationary costs. Make it small but sound and efficient. If possible, finance it for 10 years. You will save 100K or more.
There is no supply of houses that are even close to affordable to younger people, and the situation is made worse by 30 year mortgage rates at 7.0%.
Homebuilders say they don't make money on mid-range houses so they don't build them. It'll get worse with lumber tariffs.
Young adults are screwed.
Bought my first home in '81 @ 13.5% and my wife was laid off the day we closed the mortgage. Thankfully it was a VA loan so we could swing getting in it. Keeping it was another thing but we did and sold it making $20k over what we paid and built a 4 bedroom. Make America like that again w/ 4% int.
Also bought my first home in 1981 but my rate (conventional) was 14.25%. Made a little when we sold it but nothing to get excited about. How we made the monthly payment + insurance + property taxes (Massachusetts) is a great mystery to me today.
My ex Marine nephew got a VA loan for a home last year and now has wife and new baby coming at 26 and I'm so happy he could do that in return for his service.
We did without a lot. Learned to make our own pizzas and even had a second child. My daughter's may be the last generation of my family to do better than their parents.
I told my wife if she could sell our house and make 20k (we paid 48) we could move thinking it would never happen. Took 2 months.
When Dems kept saying the economy is strong, this is a reason why many weren't feeling that. And sure my house is worth a lot more but I couldn't afford to buy one just like it now with the interest rate jump. Anyone with adjustable rate loans had payments shoot up quickly and it hurt.
The interest rate jump barely matters. It’s the price of the home.
Interest rates were 16% in 1982. The interest rate on a median priced home back then would have had to be 56% to match the typical monthly payment today.
First time buyers? People moving house? People downsizing? People buying a second home?
I know things are bad for first time buyers right now, high interest rates and ridiculously high house prices, but this chart only tells part of the story at best.
Comments
Is it correct to think that's part of what's lowering inventory and raising prices?
(Title says Average but body refers to Median)
I can't even fathom buying a house for the first time in my 50s.
https://www.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024-profile-of-home-buyers-and-sellers-highlights-11-04-2024_2.pdf
Wild that people with no college degrees were able to buy homes and somehow afford childcare and still have money to send kids to college. That was only 60-70 years ago.
Now you have to be past child bearing age to afford first home?
Boomers got their first home in their 20’s,
Gen X in their 30’s.
Millennials I guess 40s
Gen Z I guess will be 50s????
We are sick of millenials, Gen z bitching that everything is our fault for YOUR lazy, lack of education and can't seem to cope with a real world. I think there should have been a mandatory 2 year military enlistment... wod have got the discipline so many never got an needed!
Millennials are more efficient, far less compensated for it, and have weathered 2 (soon to be 3) economic catastrophes.
All we have is bitching, bc we don't have a future. You took it from us.
“Work harder 🤬!”
A few threads up, "your [sic] all lazy and dumb!!!"
What are your values and intent here, my dude?
I agree there is a common threat that should be our focus.
Likely?: existing (older) homeowners have the means to buy a different house, *because* they're homeowners.
When you make it a for-profit intensive industry, everybody's price goes up and the quality goes down.
It’s not right & makes all of us responsible.
I think this data is really not helpful unless you're talking about first time buyers. Second time and beyond you're sort of just swapping assets.
Places that have banned Airbnb’s and short term rentals aren’t any cheaper.
You earn points renting through VRBO, or rent through local real estate companies and it’s cheaper. Or do home exchange and it’s free.
As a late boomer it truly is boomers' fault. Cannibalistic cannibalism is real. I watched the boomers before me rack up rents and prices "it's what the market will bear" while their children couldn't rent or buy. The lack of self reflection was breathtaking.
https://open.substack.com/pub/deanbaker2/p/will-young-people-ever-be-able-to?r=bzjy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
wealth are locked out of housing market, and we have a bifurcated market: expensive homes/townhomes or tiny low quality apartments
days of housing as wealth building are dwindling
https://bsky.app/profile/holz-bau.bsky.social/post/3lfqdu6cha22e
https://travelguru.substack.com/p/the-drumbeat-of-boomers-should-die
Now 20 year old work 2 jobs and live at home and still can’t afford homes.
My thought: Let’s build, build, build more housing, and make cities truly desirable places to raise children.
If a corp is buying something it should be in a commercial zone.
But 1 company (AMH) owns 59,000 homes. That impacts a market. One person buying one or two homes does not have that hind of market impact.
The rents they’re advertising don’t exist. Maybe another private equity pump & dump.
The main problem with that strategy is = illiquidity
https://www.bankrate.com/mortgages/historical-mortgage-rates/
The average monthly payment nearly doubled between 2020 and 2023 from $1100 to 2200.
That’s Saint Reagan pushing the first domino.
This is America
Something's got to give
Young couples should first look at buying property. Nothing more than a couple of acres. Tighten your belt and finance it for as short a term as possible. Five years of severe belt-tightening. Then, build small. If you think you need 3,000 sq. ft. make it 1,500.
aside from land and availability cost, you also have no idea how much building costs
i actually bought land in a very rural area & will build on it. getting the electrical hookup ($30K per pole), septic, and a well will cost probably $100k+.
“Pull yourself up by bootstraps” they say to people without boots.
“Work harder” they say to people with 3 jobs.
“Borrow from your parents” they say to people without parents.
there is no reason to ever go for a short mortgage, because 99% of mortgages have no prepayment penalty.
you can choose to pay as fast or as slowly as you want with ZERO increase in your REQUIRED monthly obligation.
You sir, are either uninformed or a monster, I’ll assume uninformed, so here goes,
Currently younger generations aren’t competing with their neighbors to buy homes, they’re competing with corporations….
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/15/in-shift-44-of-all-single-family-home-purchases-we/
Until 2020, the wages of Americans had been on a plateau for 40 years. In 2020, wages finally rose, but so did inflation.
Younger generations don’t get a break.
Your family will be gone before you know it. If you can, contract the house and get it built as quickly as possible due to inflationary costs. Make it small but sound and efficient. If possible, finance it for 10 years. You will save 100K or more.
Homebuilders say they don't make money on mid-range houses so they don't build them. It'll get worse with lumber tariffs.
Young adults are screwed.
I told my wife if she could sell our house and make 20k (we paid 48) we could move thinking it would never happen. Took 2 months.
Interest rates were 16% in 1982. The interest rate on a median priced home back then would have had to be 56% to match the typical monthly payment today.
The problem is the cost of the house.
And corporations have gobbled up local businesses.
I know things are bad for first time buyers right now, high interest rates and ridiculously high house prices, but this chart only tells part of the story at best.
He is right about everything; I am starting to feel tired from all this winning.😬