The Average Age of First-Time Home Buyers by Country

Published on: August 6, 2026

Last verified: 6 August 2026. Sources measure different things (current buyers vs lifetime recollections), as explained below; treat cross-country tables as relative maps.

Quick answer: The median American first-time buyer is now 40, an all-time record (NAR, 2025); mortgage-data studies say about 33, and the gap is definitional, not an error. British first-timers average about 33 on lender data, the oldest in decades. Across Europe, survey data puts first purchases earliest in Malta, the UK and Luxembourg (around 28) and latest in Switzerland and Greece (around 35). The drivers repeat everywhere: the deposit wall, later household formation, post-2008 credit rules and missing entry-level supply.

The median first-time home buyer in the United States is now 40 years old. Not 40 as a scary projection: 40 as the actual median in the National Association of Realtors' 2025 survey, an all-time record, up from 38 a year earlier, 31 in 2014 and the late twenties in the 1980s. This page collects first-time buyer ages across countries, explains why different sources give genuinely different answers for the same country, and looks at what is pushing the number up almost everywhere.

The United States: 40, with an asterisk worth understanding

NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (transactions from July 2024 to June 2025) reported two records at once: the median first-time buyer age hit 40, and first-timers' share of the market fell to 21%, the lowest since tracking began in 1981. Before 2008, first-time buyers were consistently about 40% of the market. Repeat buyers now have a median age of 62, and all buyers 59.

The asterisk: the Mortgage Bankers Association publicly disputed the 40 figure, citing a Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis of mortgage data that puts the median first-time buyer at about 33 in 2024, with the mean flat around 36 for a decade. Both can be honest. NAR surveys completed purchases including cash buyers and defines first-timers by self-report; mortgage-data studies see only financed purchases and use credit-history definitions. What no source disputes is the direction: the first-time cohort is shrinking, and the successful ones skew older and better-funded than a decade ago.

The United Kingdom: pick your measure, get 31 to 34

The UK illustrates the measurement problem even better, because four respectable sources currently give four answers:

• The English Housing Survey (government data) puts the average first-time buyer at about 32 to 33, and Skipton Group's affordability index puts England's average at 34, up from 29 in the mid-1990s, with buyers under 25 collapsing from a quarter of first-timers in the 1990s to about 6%.
• Halifax, from actual lending data, put the 2024 average at 33, the oldest in two decades, with a typical deposit of over £61,000. London and the South East run around 34; Scotland nearer 31.
• TSB's lending data reads slightly younger, around 31.

All of these describe people buying now. Survey data that asks adults of all ages when they bought their first home (see the Europe section below) produces much younger numbers, because it averages in the generations who bought cheaply in the 1980s and 1990s. Whenever you see an unusually low first-time buyer age for a rich country, check which of the two things it measures.

Europe: the survey view

The RE/MAX European Housing Trend Report 2025, covering 23 countries, is the widest recent comparison. Its numbers are survey-based recollections (see the caveat above), so treat them as a relative map rather than the current market age:

Even as a relative map it is revealing: the latest first purchases cluster in Switzerland and Greece, one because prices and deposit rules push buying deep into middle age (Switzerland is also Europe's biggest renter nation, as we show in homeownership rates by country), the other after a decade-long crisis hollowed out young buyers; Greece has the continent's smallest share of people buying before 25, at about 12%, against roughly 40% in the UK. The survey also quantifies the quiet engine behind early buying: in the UK, more than half of 18-34s receive family money toward housing, among Europe's highest rates. The "Bank of Mum and Dad" is not a metaphor; it is a measurable market participant.

The drivers, everywhere the same

Country details differ; the mechanics repeat:

1. The deposit wall. Prices have outrun incomes, so the binding constraint is saving the down payment while paying record rents. This is why family wealth increasingly decides who buys young, and why first-timer numbers thin out as rates rise.
2. Later everything. Later marriage, later children, longer education. Household formation itself has shifted into the thirties, taking first purchases with it.
3. Credit rules. Post-2008 lending standards (deposit minimums, stress tests, Switzerland's one-third affordability rule) cap how early income alone can buy a home.
4. Supply. Where homes are missing, entry-level stock is missing most; the shortage lands hardest on exactly this cohort, as the numbers in the global housing shortage show, and as we explore generationally in Gen Z and the global housing crisis.

The financing system matters too. Markets with long fixed-rate mortgages and high permitted loan-to-values (the US, the Netherlands) let thinner deposits buy earlier; markets demanding 20% down and fast amortization (Switzerland, Germany) structurally delay purchase. We compare those systems in how mortgages differ around the world.

What it means in practice

For anyone planning a first purchase, at home or abroad, three usable conclusions fall out of the data:

• Being "behind" at 35 is a myth in most rich markets. The current median American first-timer is 40; the current British one is about 33. Benchmarks from your parents' generation no longer describe the market you are buying in.
• The age gap between countries is partly a rules gap. Moving your purchase to a different market can change the deposit and financing math more than years of extra saving would; buying at 31 in one country can require less capital than buying at 38 in another.
• The window narrows late, not early. Mortgage terms are the hidden clock: a 30-year loan taken at 40 runs to 70, and lenders in many countries cap the age at final repayment, which quietly shortens maximum terms, raises payments and is one more reason delayed buying compounds.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average age of a first-time home buyer in the US?
The median was 40 in NAR's 2025 survey, a record. Mortgage-data-based studies (New York Fed) put it around 33; the gap comes from different data and definitions, but all sources agree the trend is upward.

What is the average age of a first-time buyer in the UK?
Around 33 on lender data (Halifax) and 32 to 34 on government survey data, the oldest in decades. In the mid-1990s it was 29.

Where in Europe do people buy their first home earliest and latest?
On the 2025 RE/MAX survey, earliest in Malta, the UK, Luxembourg, Hungary and the Netherlands (around 28 to 29); latest in Switzerland and Greece (around 35). Türkiye, at 34.1, is among the latest.

Why are first-time buyers getting older?
Deposits have grown faster than incomes, rents absorb saving capacity, credit rules tightened after 2008, and life milestones that trigger buying (partnering, children) now happen later. Family financial help increasingly determines who escapes the trend.

Is 40 too old to buy a first home?
No; it is now the median in the world's largest housing market. The practical constraints are loan-term and retirement-age rules, which make mortgage-term planning more important for late first-timers, not ownership itself less attainable.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

If the market you grew up in prices you out, the data above says the practical answer is often a different market, not a different decade. JanusHermes aggregates local agency listings across more than 50 countries in 11 languages, with the local agency's contact details on the listing.

For the first purchase itself, see how to buy property abroad as a first-time buyer and deposits and down payments by country. For the decision math, run buy vs rent: the 30-year simulation. For the structural context, read homeownership rates by country, how mortgages differ around the world and Gen Z and the global housing crisis.

This article is general information compiled from the named sources, not financial advice.

Primary sources: National Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers; Federal Reserve Bank of New York first-time buyer analysis and Mortgage Bankers Association commentary; Halifax first-time buyer review (2024); English Housing Survey; Skipton Group Home Affordability Index; TSB lending data; RE/MAX European Housing Trend Report 2025 (as reported by Euronews Business).

Figures are the latest available as of August 2026. Measures differ by source, as explained above.