“Warped”: Since 2010, Average Home Buyer Goes From Age 39 to 59. Typical First-Time Buyer Turns 40.

The numbers don’t lie.  First-timers have never dealt with harsher circumstances in U.S. homebuying history.

The typical age for first-time home buyers is now 40, according to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).

Fortune magazine points to the observation of Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok: on average, all buyers have aged. Using NAR’s data, Slok found that the median age of all U.S. buyers in 2025 is 59 years old. Just 15 years ago, it was 39 years old.

The upshot? Since the 2008 financial crisis, many have been kept locked out of what some say is a great economy. Or, as the recent Fortune headline put the point, the “Housing Market Has Warped in One Generation.”

Path to a Deed Gets Longer and Longer

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) has published its 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. NAR’s new report shows the median first-time buyer’s age spiking to its all-time high: 40.

NAR puts this record-breaking age in striking context. In 1991, most people in the United States could buy a home for the first time by age 28. And the typical first-timer has aged a whole five years since the pandemic.

What’s taking a hopeful buyer so long to finally get a deed in hand? Here, we can step back to look at the big picture. Wages started falling well behind the cost of living in the 1980s. The gap between U.S. costs and income continues to push savings down. The last time Congress increased the federal minimum wage was in July 2009.

And now, the younger generations are looking at immense mortgages to cover the sale prices of even modest homes. They are facing elevated interest rates to boot. As home values have surged, so have a deed holder’s property taxes. Insurance and utility rates are rising as well. In many regions of the country, buyers face rising premiums and few choices in home insurance — even when they’re not buying in a flood-prone or fire-prone location.

No wonder young adults feel stymied — especially those without access to family wealth. No wonder the number of young adults living with their parents has risen by  a million and a half in a decade. That 6.3% rise is double the rate of population growth for young adults.

Working Hard, Saving Up—And Sidelined

Working hard and saving up for a down payment (if possible, 20% to avoid paying mandatory mortgage insurance) maintaining good credit, and doing everything right as property prices march upward can mean being sidelined from homeownership regardless. Just think. The median U.S. home price is now $440K — up 40% and counting in the past five years.

Too many young buyers have large student loans and pay such exorbitant amounts of rent that they can’t even think about down payments, let alone down payments of 20%. Nearly half of Gen Z workers — young adults up to 28 years of age — have already withdrawn from their 401(k) retirement savings accounts to handle debts or emergencies.

Those who work non-stop until can finally save enough to acquire deeds at age 40 then have a 30-year debt to pay down. How many will get to the milestone of a paid-off home?

A small house in a typical U.S. city generally costs more than $2K per month to maintain. That includes property taxes and insurance, upkeep and repairs, heating and air conditioning, and paying down a mortgage balance. A modest condo property could get a buyer on the ladder, but isn’t cheap, given insurance and homeowners’ association dues. Even RVs and mobile homes have seen significant price rises.

All this is why just one in five buyers today is a first-timer. This is a striking figure. It means the percentage of first-timers is just half what it was before the market crashed 17 years back.  In fact, it means the share of first-timers dropped like a rock just since last year! First-timers made up a third of all buyers for the year 2023 – 2024.

In the words of NAR economist Jessica Lautz, the implications are “staggering.” It’s indisputable that the first-time home buyers of today will be accumulating less home equity, and therefore have less of an ability to move for job opportunities and quality of life than their parents had.

This is a warped housing market.

The Impact on a Whole Society

Acquiring a deed, says Fortune magazine, once was key to the American Dream. It still is. Yet we have never seen a more harrowing time for millennial and Gen Z households to acquire their own deeds.

Nine in ten Gen Zers say they want to hold their own titles eventually. But eight in ten say they can’t afford to buy today. They don’t yet have equity. They’re approaching an unforgiving real estate world at a time when mortgage rates are over 6% and forecast to remain at that level. Even if a younger buyer has enough for a good down payment, the journey is not without obstacles. There are people with equity, buyers with cash, to contend with.

And truth be told, the struggle to acquire a deed isn’t just confined to young adults. It’s impacting generations. The stress reverberates throughout society. When people struggle with finances and housing instability, how can they meet creative goals? How can they fully participate in an economy, in relationships, and in their broader culture?

There’s a strong need to revitalize underused properties, ease local zoning, and encourage plans for building affordable homes. Because deeds are for everybody. They shouldn’t be reserved, like spots in a secret treehouse, just for a privileged few.