The median age of a typical first-time homebuyer was 35 years old in 2025, a year lower than in 2024 and well below the peak age of 38 in 2018, according to a recent report from real estate brokerage Redfin.
The brokerage also reported the typical repeat buyer was 47 years old, down from a historic peak of 52 the year before.
It’s typically more difficult for young people to afford homes because they are more likely to be first-time homebuyers, relying on their savings and salary to buy homes without the benefit of equity from a prior sale. That means a slight affordability improvement gives a few more young homebuyers a chance to break into the housing market.
That explains why the median age fell slightly from 2024 to 2025. Going back further, Redfin said it has generally gotten more difficult for young people to afford a home over the last few decades.
“Housing costs have steadily risen over the last few decades, especially in the last five years, with the pandemic homebuying frenzy pushing up prices and the subsequent rise in mortgage rates,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s Head of Economics Research. “Wages have increased, too, but not as quickly, making it more difficult to afford a home. But the typical age of first-time homebuyers hasn’t changed much in that span, suggesting that more millennials and Gen Zers are getting help from family to buy a home, or using other sources of income like money that would have gone to their retirement savings.”
Redfin noted that the small improvement in affordability from 2024 to 2025, along with more inventory, brought the median homebuying age down. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.6% in 2025, down from 6.72% in 2024, Redfin noted, and while home-sale prices continued rising last year, price growth lost some steam.
Redfin said that affordability is improving in most major U.S. metros, and it expects affordability to improve more throughout the year.
Gen Z’s homeownership rate rose to 27.1%, from 26.1% the year before, and millennials’ homeownership rate also improved to 55.4% from 54.9%, Redfin noted.
Some Buyers Aided by Cash Gifts
Redfin said that one in five (19.6%) millennials who recently bought a home received a cash gift from family to help with their down payment, according to a November 2025 Redfin survey, as did 14.8% of Gen Zers. About one in five recent buyers of both generations sold stock investments for their down payment, and 13% pulled money out of retirement funds early, Redfin noted.
The brokerage noted that the median age of repeat homebuyers dropped to 47 in 2025 from a quarter-century peak of 52 the year before. It said that many of last year’s repeat buyers represented pent-up demand from 2024: Some were waiting for 2024’s high mortgage rates to fall even a little bit before moving, and some just became accustomed to 6%-plus rates, making 2025 the year they made a move.
Redfin noted that its estimates of the median age of first-time and repeat homebuyers differ from the figures published in November by the National Association of Realtors.
Redfin said its findings skew younger than those of NAR, which reported the median age of a first-time homebuyer as 40 and the median age of a repeat buyer as 62. Those figures have been widely cited in recent months—including by Redfin—which is part of what prompted the company to take a deeper look at the data.
Both Redfin and NAR’s findings point to the same long-term trend: Americans are buying homes later in life than they did a decade ago or two decades ago, even if the exact median age varies depending on how it’s measured, Redfin said.
