Finding a Home Took Longer in the Second Quarter of 2018

Adults currently planning to buy a home over the course of the next year are already looking, and their home search is eating up more than half of their time.

In the second quarter of 2018, active home shoppers are spending 53 percent of the time looking, up two percent from the first quarter of this year, but down nine percent from the fourth quarter of 2017, per data from the National Association of Home Builders. By generation, nearly half or more than half of each buyer group is already looking; Millennials had the highest share, 51 percent. The most-cited reason for the home search taking three months long or more is that buyers are not able to find the features they want, 45 percent of survey respondents, with not being able to find a home priced within their budget being the second most popular reason for 43 percent of respondents.

Fourteen percent of adults responding to our poll in the second quarter of 2018 are planning to purchase a home in the next 12 months. A follow-up question asked that group if they were already actively trying to find a house or still just in the planning stage: 49 percent said they were already actively engaged in the search process, a share that was somewhat higher than in Qtr1’18 (42 percent) but still lower than in Qtr4’17 (67 percent).

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