Being a home buyer isn't for the faint of heart these days! In fact, if the housing market was a game of musical chairs, the Baby Boomers have hogged all the seats, leaving Millennials scrambling like caffeinated squirrels just to grab a rickety stool over in the corner. Let's take a look at the situation and see what's going on!
Here are Five Fast Facts on how young first-time home buyers are disappearing:
- 🧓 Grab Your Walker - The average first-time homebuyer is now a whopping 40 years old (up from a spry 29 back in 1981), while “all buyers” skew ancient at a median age of 59. This is, apparently, the era of the "geriatric homebuyer" who might need a walker to sign the dotted line.
- 💨 Fading Glory - First-timers are fading faster than your favorite TikTok trend: they made up just 21% of home sales last year, half the usual crowd. Who can afford a down payment when rent's eating your paycheck like a greedy goblin?
- 📈 Going Up - Repeat buyers are hitting records too. At a median age of 62, nearly a third of these buyers drop all-cash bombs on houses like it's Monopoly money. Oh, they also chill in their pads for a median 11 years, refusing to budge like grumpy cats in the sun.
- 💵 Cash Kings Rule - A record 26% of all buyers went all-cash last year, letting them swoop in faster than you can say "bidding war," while Millennials drown in student loans and wait for mom and dad's piggy bank bailout (which, spoiler: fewer are getting).
- 😭 Delay Drama - Waiting a decade longer to buy means missing out on about $150,000 in home equity growth (homes beef up 5% a year), turning what should've been a wealth rocket into a sad, stalled scooter ride.
🔥Bottom line: This housing hullabaloo is slamming the door on young dreamers and brewing a wealth gap that could bubble over for years. Fingers crossed for falling interest rates to shake things loose in the near future!
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