Did you buy your first home early or late?
Buy at 26 and you were early. At 42 you were late. Both of those depend entirely on which year you did it in, and the reference point has travelled a long way in twenty years while most people are still carrying their parents' version of it. Put in your purchase age and the year and see where you actually landed. This calculator on Find The Norm uses NAR 2025 Profile of Home Buyers (N=6,103) and English Housing Survey 2024-25 data to rank your first-home purchase age against US and UK first-time buyers.
Querying population data…
Can you afford to buy now?
The house-price-to-income ratio where you live.
What is the average age to buy a first home?
The US median hit 40 in 2025 for a first home purchase, the highest the National Association of REALTORS has ever recorded, while the average in England sits at 34 according to the English Housing Survey 2024 to 25, rising to 35 in London. Six years separate those two countries on the same question.
Both numbers have climbed. NAR says the typical American first-time buyer of the 1980s was in their late 20s, and England's average was 31 in 2005 to 06. Its highlights reports don't carry the older US figures, so that column starts in 2023, with one row per survey year.
| Year | US median first-time buyer age (NAR) | England average first-time buyer age (EHS) |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 to 06 | n/a | 31 |
| 2010 to 11 | n/a | 32 |
| 2015 to 16 | n/a | 32 |
| 2019 to 20 | n/a | 32 |
| 2023 | 35 | 34 (2023 to 24) |
| 2024 | 38 | 34 (2024 to 25) |
| 2025 | 40 | Not yet published |
Why are first-time buyers older now?
Because house prices have outrun wages for two decades, which stretches the years it takes to assemble a deposit, and because the life events that used to trigger a first purchase now happen later too. Five forces push in the same direction across both the US and the UK:
- House price growth outpacing wages. In most cities property has risen far faster than earnings, which stretches the years needed to put a deposit together. The savings rate data shows what that does to a household budget.
- Deposit requirements. A 10 to 20% deposit on a median-priced home now takes most households years of concentrated saving to reach.
- Student debt. Graduate loan repayments eat the disposable income that would otherwise turn into a deposit, and they bite hardest in the US where the balances are larger.
- Later family formation. People marry later and have children later than they used to, and both of those events were historically what set off a first purchase.
- Urban concentration. Younger adults cluster in high-cost cities, where rental pressure is worst and purchase prices are highest, so saving is hardest exactly where buying is dearest.
First home buyer age by generation
Each cohort has bought later than the one before it. What moved underneath is the ratio of prices to earnings, which the ONS puts at 3.5 times median workplace earnings in England in 1997, the first year of its series, and 7.6 in 2025, and it hasn't been near the 1997 level since:
| Generation | Birth years | Typical first purchase age (UK/US) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baby Boomers | 1946 to 1964 | Mid-to-late 20s | Property prices 3 to 4x earnings; deposits more achievable |
| Generation X | 1965 to 1980 | Late 20s to early 30s | Rising prices; early adoption of Help to Buy schemes in UK |
| Millennials | 1981 to 1996 | Around 34 (England) / 38 to 40 (US) | Record median ages; the "generation rent" cohort |
| Generation Z | 1997 to 2012 | Emerging data | Steepest property ladders on record in most cities |
Is 40 too old to buy a first home?
No. The US median first-time buyer age in 2025 is 40, which means half of everyone buying a first home in the country is doing it at 40 or older, so a purchase at that age sits in the middle of the distribution rather than out at the tail of it.
The real considerations are financial rather than social. A 40-year-old on a 30-year mortgage is still making payments into their 70s, which runs straight into retirement planning. Later buyers do tend to arrive with higher incomes, bigger deposits and better credit profiles, and that offsets a fair amount of it. They also spend fewer years exposed to a falling market.
What none of this tells you is whether to buy at all. That turns on local market conditions, how secure your job is, what your family plans look like, and the price-to-rent ratio in the specific area you want to live in.
Frequently asked questions
34 in England, according to the English Housing Survey 2024 to 25, up from 32 in 2019 to 20 and 31 in 2005 to 06. London runs slightly older at 35. In 2024 to 25, 58% of recent first-time buyers were aged 25 to 34. Two decades have added about three years to the average. The survey covers England only, so it isn't a UK-wide figure.
NAR doesn't give an under-30 share in its 2025 headline release, but with the US median first-time buyer now 40, buying before 30 has become unusual there. The English Housing Survey 2024 to 25 splits England's recent first-time buyers more finely: 5% were under 25, 58% were 25 to 34, 28% were 35 to 44 and 9% were 45 or older.
This calculator answers when people buy relative to their peers and says nothing about whether buying is right for you. That turns on your local price-to-rent ratio, how long you expect to stay put, what the deposit could earn elsewhere and how much flexibility you need. The threshold most people use is 20 times annual rent: above it, as in London, New York and San Francisco, renting can stay financially rational over long timeframes, and below it buying usually wins.
Several pressures landed at once. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked at 7.79% in October 2023, its highest since 2000, and didn't drop below 6% through 2024, while house prices kept climbing anyway and starter homes stayed scarce in most US markets. In NAR's 2023 profile the median was 35, and in 2024 it was 38. NAR also found 30% of repeat buyers paid all cash, which squeezes out exactly the younger buyers who need financing.
A median of 10% of the purchase price in the US, against 23% for repeat buyers (NAR 2025). The traditional 20% that clears private mortgage insurance is out of reach for most first-time buyers on a median-priced home in most markets. UK buyers can get help from Lifetime ISAs, and until it closed, Help to Buy. A 5% deposit on England's average first-time buyer price of £244,950 (UK House Price Index, May 2026) comes to about £12,250.
Usually, and it is the term rather than the loan that gets negotiated. Lenders set a maximum borrower age at the end of the term, commonly 75 or 80, so a 40-year-old can still take a full 30 years where an older applicant often cannot. Finishing a 30-year term at 70 does land inside retirement planning, which is the part worth thinking through. Later buyers tend to arrive with higher incomes, larger deposits and stronger credit profiles, all of which help the application itself.
It describes Millennials and younger adults renting for longer, or indefinitely, because the barriers to ownership are structural rather than personal. The phrase surfaced in the UK around 2012 to 2013, when the ONS measure of house prices against workplace earnings in England had reached 6.8, and 8.5 in London, against 3.5 in 1997. Planning limits on supply and cheap money from 2009 to 2022 are the drivers usually named.
Yes, in both countries. In the UK the Lifetime ISA adds a 25% government bonus on savings of up to £4,000 a year, for properties up to £450,000, and first-time buyers pay no Stamp Duty Land Tax on the first £300,000 of a home costing up to £500,000. American buyers can make a penalty-free IRA withdrawal of up to $10,000 towards a first home, and an FHA loan needs as little as 3.5% down.
Only modestly on the one split the English Housing Survey publishes: recent first-time buyers in London averaged 34.5 in 2024 to 25, against 33.8 in the rest of England. Prices vary far more. The ONS puts the median home at 10.6 times median workplace earnings in London in 2025, against 5.0 in the North East and 7.6 across England. Nationally, 58% of recent first-time buyers were aged 25 to 34.
It has fallen hard for the young. English Housing Survey data shows 59% of households headed by a 25 to 34 year old owned their home in 2003 to 04; by 2024 to 25 that was 48%. In the US, the ownership rate among households headed by someone under 35 was 35.2% in Q2 2026, against 65.0% nationally. Baby Boomers reached ownership far younger than Millennials, mostly because prices were far lower against earnings then.
- National Association of REALTORS. (2025). 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. NAR Research Group, N=6,103.
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. (2025). English Housing Survey 2024 to 25: headline findings, Annex Tables 1.4, 3.1 and 3.3. GOV.UK.
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. (2024). English Housing Survey 2023 to 24. GOV.UK.
- ONS. (2026). Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2025. US Census Bureau, Housing Vacancies and Homeownership, Table 19. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey. HM Land Registry, UK House Price Index.