NAR says the median age of first-time homebuyers in 2025 is 40, up from 28 in 1992—but can we trust the data?

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.

Earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released its annual survey, which found that the median age of first-time U.S. homebuyers in 2025 climbed to 40. That’s up from 38 in 2024—and far above the median age in 1992, when it was 28.

At first glance, it appears that deteriorating housing affordability—driven by the Pandemic Housing Boom and the 2022 mortgage-rate shock—has pushed the age of first-time buyers higher. However, when you look across other data sources, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Census Bureau, you don’t see the same spike.

ResiClub dug deeper into the data to figure out what’s really going on.

According t