At its core, demography is the study of human populations—their size, structure, distribution, and how they change over time.
The mortgage industry relies on demographics to predict demand, assess risk, design new products, market loans, and comply with lending regulations. Demographic analysis helps lenders better understand who is buying homes, where the demand is growing, and what kinds of financing options different demographic groups need.
In the housing sector, demographers look at homeownership by analyzing who owns, homes, who rents, and how those trends change over time across various groups of people. Who are today’s homeowners in the United States, a nation where almost everything seems to be rapidly changing, and housing affordability is one of the biggest political issues?
“Demographics are a fundamental driver of housing demand and mortgage activity,” said Odeta Kushi, VP and Deputy Chief Economist at First American Financial Corp. “Factors such as population growth, household formation, and life-cycle decisions—like marriage and family formation—shape when households enter the market and how that demand evolves over time.”
“Their importance has become more visible as demographic trends have diverged across generations, and as data availability and accessibility have grown. Differences in the timing of homeownership, household formation, and mobility patterns continue to play a central role in shaping mortgage demand,” Kushi said. “As a result, demographics are central to forecasting mortgage activity. Shifts like delayed homeownership among younger households and aging in place among older owners directly influence purchase demand and overall housing turnover.”
Moving forward, what qualities will define the homebuyer of the future?
Demographic Profiles are Shifting
Today, homebuyers present shifting demographic profiles that reflect significant economic, social, and generational changes. On average, potential homebuyers are older, more diverse, and increasingly shaped by affordability pressures that have delayed their entry into the market.
First-time buyers, who once were the backbone of home sales, now make up a smaller share, squeezed by high prices, higher mortgage rates, and limited inventory, while repeat buyers with accumulated equity play a larger role.
“Younger households, particularly first-time buyers, remain the most constrained. They typically lack the housing equity that repeat buyers can use toward a down payment, and saving remains the biggest hurdle to entry,” Kushi said. “While ffordability is gradually improving, our February Real House Price Index shows conditions at their best level since 2022. It remains historically constrained.”
In NAR’s 2025 Generational Trends report, Gen Z accounted for 3% of buyers, millennials were 29% combined, Gen X was 24%, baby boomers were 42%, and the Silent Generation (1928-1945) was 4%.
NAR reported that the share of first-time home buyers dropped to a record low of 21%, while the typical age of first-time buyers climbed to an all-time high of 40 years.
“The historically low share of first-time buyers underscores the real-world consequences of a housing market starved for affordable inventory,” said Jessica Lautz, Deputy Chief Economist and VP of Research for the NAR (National Association of Realtors). “The share of first-time buyers in the market has contracted by 50% since 2007—right before the Great Recession.
The implications for the housing market are staggering. Today’s first-time buyers are building less housing wealth and will likely have fewer moves over a lifetime as a result.”
Baby Boomers Have Largest Piece of the Pie
Older Americans dominate homeownership, with baby boomers having the largest share at an 80% ownership rate. Millennials (55%) and Gen Zers (27%) are slowly catching up as the baby boomers age.
Demographers note that this fact reflects delayed entry into homeownership, not necessarily a full-blown rejection of it. Younger households are buying later because of costs, debt, and later life milestones.
Rising participation among Hispanic, Black, and Asian households is reshaping the racial makeup of homeowners, even as persistent gaps in access to credit and wealth persist.
In a recent study, LendingTree noted that inequality is a major issue in the United States, with systemic racism and historical discrimination causing challenges in daily life, including homebuying, for Black Americans, who are among the nation’s most economically disadvantaged groups.
Online bank lending market LendingTree found that the Black homeownership rate across the 50 largest metros was 43.6%, compared with 70.3% among white householders.
Examining Homeownership Rates
LendingTree found that Atlanta topped the list for Black homeownership among the 50 largest metros, with a rate of 55.3%. Birmingham, Alabama (54.1%), and Richmond, Virginia (52.8%), follow close behind. Just five metros have Black homeownership rates above 50%, with Washington, D.C., and Miami rounding out the group, the lender said.
According to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals’ (NAHREP) 2025 State of Hispanic Homeownership Report released in March, a record number of Hispanic households are now homeowners.
The report said that roughly 10.2 million Hispanic households owned their properties last year. About 441,000 new Hispanic households became homeowners in 2025, the largest annual rise in Hispanic homeownership since the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking the data in 1975, according to the report.
“In a year in which affordability and economic uncertainty kept many Americans on the sidelines, Latino buyers
are effectively supporting the housing market,” NAHREP National President Edwin Acevedo said. “Their youth and
resilience in a tough environment indicate that the influence of Latino buyers will only grow over time.”
NAHREP said it attributed the gains in homeownership to slower home price appreciation, lower mortgage rates, and more properties for sale.
According to The Harvard Center Joint Center for Housing Studies (The Center), Hispanic households tend to enter homeownership later in life. The median first-time buyer age of Hispanics is 34, compared to 31 for white households, it said.
The Center said that the delay in Hispanic homeownership reflects a set of early barriers that appear long before families are ready to buy a home. It said the homeownership rate for Hispanic households between the ages of 35 and 44 was 22 percentage points lower than that of non-Hispanic white households in the same age group.
The trends paint a picture of a housing market that is less accessible for newcomers but more reflective of the country’s evolving demographics.
The demographics of current homebuyers offer clear trends across age, income, household type, and market behavior. Here’s a breakdown of those trends:
- The median buyer age is about 42 years old, and depending on who did the study, the average age of a first-time homebuyer is 35 to 40. Repeat buyers’ average age is 47, according to Redfin.
- Due to affordability challenges, buyers are older than in past decades.
- The typical composition of homebuyers in America is evolving.
- Most are married couples (50-60%), while single women comprise 20-25% and single men make up 10%. Buyers with children under the age of 18 comprise 18%-24%, but that percentage is declining, demographers said.
- Most homebuyers are white, and while minority homeownership is growing, it still lags.
- Black and Hispanic buyers face lower ownership rates and higher barriers such as income, credit, and wealth gaps.
- As a trend, buyers are waiting longer to purchase, and many of them rely on family help or dual incomes to buy a home.
A new survey from U.S. News & World Report shows the lengths some homebuyers are having to go to in buying a new home.
Homebuyers Take On ‘Side Hustles’
The survey said that more than half of homebuyers (57%) are taking on additional work or a side hustle to deal with higher housing payments, and that 37% are planning to buy a home with someone other than a spouse or partner—somebody like a friend, a sibling or a parent—to split the cost.
It said that 11% reported that most of their down payment is coming from parents or family. About one in nine homebuyers are turning to “the bank of mom and dad” for help with their mortgages.
Between April 20 and 24, 2026, U.S. News ran a nationwide survey of 1,207 Americans planning to buy a home this year using a mortgage.
The survey found that about two-thirds of homebuyers (62%) are waiting for rates to fall before buying a home in 2026. That’s much lower than last year’s survey, when 80% of respondents said the same. That suggests that consumers are finally becoming accustomed to rates above 6%, five years after the ultralow rates in the COVID-19 pandemic era.
“The thing that jumped out to me was, we always ask, ‘Are you waiting for mortgage rates to fall before buying a home?’” said Erika Giovanetti, Consumer Lending Analyst for U.S. News.
“The first two years we ran it, we had about two thirds—66%, 67%—and in 2025, 80% of people were waiting for rates to fall.”
Giovanetti added that, “This year, it’s come back down even lower. Sixty-two percent of homebuyers are waiting for rates to fall. So, I would say, broadly, the biggest takeaway here is that people are getting comfortable with the 6% rates.”
Giovanetti discussed some of the creative and nontraditional approaches homebuyers are taking.
“The creative ways that we’re looking at for people who are buying a home with a mortgage has to do with the sacrifices they’re giving up,” she said. “Thirty-seven percent are buying a home with a non-spouse. Whether it’s a friend, a sibling, a parent, a child, it’s not something that we’ve asked in years past,” Giovanetti said. “It’s a significant number, if you’re looking at it overall. Fifteen percent said they were considering buying a house with a friend, and that’s what I would consider more nontraditional. And this rise in co-buying, I think, really speaks a lot to the market.
“Traditionally, you would look at renters who are moving in with each other because rent is rising, and they can afford $2,500 for rent if they split it between them and one other person,” Giovanetti said.
The Urban Institute said in a report that, for millions of families, owning a home has long represented a gateway to financial prosperity, upward mobility, and the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Will that remain true in the
decades to come?
At a Crossroads
It said that the value of American homeownership is partly owed to the nation’s housing finance system.
But, after nearly a century of making homeownership possible for millions, the system is at a crossroads, Urban
Institute noted in an analysis of the nation’s FHLBank system.
It said that economic, political, societal, and technological trends are presenting challenges, but also hold
the promise for the continued viability of homeownership and the system that makes it possible.
The Harvard Center Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) reported in a recent study that looking forward, demographic changes over the next 10 years are relatively predictable compared to market changes.
In general, the JCHS noted that there are two significant demographic factors that will influence overall homeownership rate trends: the changing age structure of the population and growing racial/ethnic diversity.
It said that the 2025 household projections show that, between 2025 and 2035, the number of households headed by a person aged 65 and over is projected to grow by nearly 20%. Given that homeownership rates rise with age, that shift will theoretically work to increase overall homeownership rates.
Concurrently, JCHS said that households headed by Black, Hispanic, Asian, and all other race householders will make up fully 98% of all net household growth between 2025 and 2035. It said that increasing diversity of households will function as a downward force on future homeownership rates because of constant and large homeownership rate disparities by race and ethnicity.
According to the JCHS, comparing the homeownership rate of non-Hispanic white households, the homeownership rate of Black households was 28 percentage points lower, the Hispanic homeownership rate was 25 percentage points lower, and the rate for Asian and all other race households was 14 percentage points lower in 2024.
As America’s population continues to age and diversify, the future of homeownership will increasingly depend on whether the housing market can adapt to the realities facing younger and minority buyers. The data suggests that the desire to own a home remains strong, but affordability pressures, limited inventory, rising debt burdens, and widening wealth gaps are forcing many households to delay or rethink the traditional path to ownership. At the same time, demographic shifts are creating new opportunities for lenders, policymakers, and housing providers willing to innovate around financing, accessibility, and long-term affordability.
The next decade could redefine what the “typical” American homeowner looks like. Hispanic households, multicultural buyers, multigenerational families, and nontraditional co-buyers are poised to play a much larger role in sustaining housing demand as older generations age in place. Whether the nation can preserve homeownership as a reliable pathway to wealth creation may ultimately depend on addressing the structural barriers that continue to leave many aspiring buyers behind. In that sense, the future of housing is not just an economic story—it is a demographic one.
