Although home sales have been stagnant amid high mortgage rates and elevated home prices, some households are continuing to purchase homes. Housing market platform Zillow conducted its annual Consumer Housing Trends Report and also analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey to figure out who the typical homebuyer is right now.
According to the data, just 5% of adults in the U.S. are recent buyers. Of these buyers, the median age is 42, but about 21% are in their 20s or younger. The average buyer also typically tends to have a higher annual income, with the median for homebuyers set at $97,600 compared with the national median, which is $74,600 per year. A number of other factors affect homebuying trends as well, according to Zillow, including the buyer’s relationship status and the the location where they are looking to buy, among others.
Prior research has shown that the purchase of a home is often tied to family formation or other life events, like a divorce or separation. This relationship between homeownership and family formation helps explain why over two thirds of buyers are married/partnered (70%) and almost a sixth (15%) have been married in the past.
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