First-time buyers may be entering the U.S. home market in greater numbers than industry watchers had assumed.
As The Associated Press reports, nearly half of sales in the past year went to people who were buying their first home, according to a survey released today by real estate firm Zillow. That’s a much higher proportion of the market than some other industry estimates had indicated.
Zillow’s survey results suggest that this year’s growth in home sales has come largely from a wave of couples in their 30s, who are the most common first-time buyers.
If that trend were to hold, it could raise hopes that today’s vast generation of 18-to-34-year-old millennials will help support the housing market as more of them move into their 30s.
Contrary to what the real estate industry has generally thought, first-time buyers actually make up a larger chunk of the housing market. Forty-seven percent of purchases in the past year went to first-time buyers, whose median age was 33.
By contrast, surveys from the National Association of Realtors have indicated that first-timers account for about 32% of all buyers.
When millennials buy, the survey says, they’re leapfrogging past the traditional, smaller starter home. This younger generation paid a median of $217,000 for a 1,800-square-foot house. That median is nearly identical to what older generations buy.
Across the United States, the typical home costs $222,000, has three bedrooms, two and a half baths and 1,900 square feet. For someone with children at home, that figure swells to 2,000 square feet and a median price of $234,000.
