Buying Your First Home? A Look at 20-Year Trends

It used to be that most Americans aspired to marry and buy a home—in that order. But Millennials today are doing things differently: They’re delaying both marriage and childbirth (if they plan on doing either at all), they’re facing greater financial barriers to homeownership and a tougher housing market than the generations before them, and that’s causing many to rent instead of buy or to live at home with their parents.

This means that first-time homebuyers in the U.S. look significantly different from 20 years ago. New homeowners aren’t much older than before—the median age in 2017 was 34, compared to 32 in 1997—but they are more diverse, which is in line with demographic shifts since the 1990s. They also reflect the changing attitude towards homeownership among Millennials: Today, a larger share of new homeowners buy before marriage and form new households at the time of purchase.