40 year old first time homebuyers
The Real Reason First-Time Homebuyers Are 40: We Raise Kids Who Don’t Become Adults Until 30
For decades, the American dream included owning a home by your late twenties. Parents who bought starter homes in the early 1990s remember signing the deed around age 28 and moving in with a young family. Fast-forward thirty years and those same parents are stunned: according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the median first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. A year earlier the median age was 38; five years ago it was 33; in 1991 it was 28. In other words, the “starter home” has shifted by over a decade within a single generation.
Conventional wisdom blames the economy. We hear about high interest rates, student loan debt, housing shortages, and stagnant wages. Those factors matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. As we’ll see, homeownership isn’t the only milestone drifting into middle age. Marriage, child-bearing, work, independence—almost every marker of adult life now arrives later than it did when today’s parents were coming of age. The economy didn’t cause that drift; it reflects it.
As someone who helps families move into meaning, I believe our problem isn’t primarily financial but chronological. We have moved the starting line of adulthood from the late teens into the late twenties—or even thirties. That delay has cascading effects, and the housing crisis is simply the most visible symptom. If we want our children to own a home before middle age, we have to give them adulthood before middle age.
A decade of delay
Look at the pattern across multiple milestones:
Homeownership – In 1991 the median first-time buyer was 28 years old. By 2025 that median has jumped to 40. NAR also notes that only 24% of buyers now have children under 18 living at home, down from 58% in 1985. The composition of first-time buyers has shifted toward singles and older couples rather than young families.
Marriage – Census tables show that in 1990 the median age at first marriage was 26.1 for men and 23.9 for women. By 2024 those numbers climbed to 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women. That four-to-five-year shift means many people now treat marriage as something to do only after career, travel, and “self-development” are complete.
Child-bearing – Data from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research show that the mean age at first birth rose from 25.4 in 2010 to 27.5 in 2023. Among women finishing their child-bearing years (ages 40–44), the average age at first birth increased from 23 in 1990 to 26 in 2018. In other words, today’s typical new mother is roughly four years older than her counterpart in the early 1990s.
Education and work – A four-year bachelor’s degree has quietly become a six-year project for many students. Data from the U.S. Department of Education show that less than 40% of first-time, full-time students at four-year institutions graduate in four years; around 60% finish within six years (we’ll explore this deeper in a later post). Many twentysomethings now treat college as an extended adolescence instead of a launchpad.
Family composition – NAR’s 2025 profile notes that only 24% of recent buyers have children under 18. Married couples make up 61% of buyers, while single women (21%) and single men (9%) account for a growing share. Fewer households with kids are buying homes because they are starting families later—and often remain renters or live with extended family for longer.
Put those data points together and a picture emerges: adulthood itself is drifting. It’s not just that homes are expensive; it’s that people are waiting longer to enter the phases of life when buying a home makes sense. The question is, why?
The chain reaction of delayed adulthood
One of the core principles I teach is that time is the most precious resource, and it is not equally distributed. When you waste a decade in prolonged adolescence, you don’t simply push milestones back; you compound delays across every domain.
Think of adulthood as a sequence:
Responsibility and work – Historically, teenagers transitioned into meaningful work and family contribution by their late teens. They earned, learned, and built skills early.
Marriage and family formation – Young adults formed households in their early twenties. Marriage was a foundation for maturity, not a reward for completing it.
Homeownership and long-term investment – With a dual-income household and children on the way, buying a modest home in their late twenties was a logical step. The home became a place to raise children and a vehicle for wealth building.
Legacy and contribution – By their forties, parents had two decades of equity, savings, and community involvement under their belt. They could help their own kids launch early adulthood from a position of strength.
When you shift the starting age of responsibility from 18 to 28, each downstream milestone moves accordingly. People who start full-time work at 28 will likely marry later, have children later, and purchase homes later. They lose compounding years of savings and equity. The “ten-year delay” at the beginning becomes a twenty-year delay by middle age.
Modern culture normalizes this drift. We tell young adults to “find themselves,” “enjoy their twenties,” and avoid commitment. The result isn’t freedom but perpetual adolescence. Many twentysomethings jump from job to job, major to major, and relationship to relationship. None of those activities produce the stability necessary for long-term wealth or family life.
Homeownership as a casualty
Why is homeownership the most visible casualty of delayed adulthood? Because buying a home requires all the adult competencies that our culture postpones:
Savings discipline – Coming up with a down payment demands budgeting, restraint, and delayed gratification. If you spend your twenties in school or leisure, you forfeit years of saving.
Creditworthiness – Mortgage lenders want to see steady employment and a history of paying bills on time. Young adults who avoid credit cards and bills during extended schooling often lack a credit profile when they finally enter the workforce.
Relational stability – Most people buy homes after partnering. If marriage is delayed into the thirties, the purchase of a home follows suit.
Community commitment – Renting allows for mobility; buying ties you to a place. Extended adolescence celebrates rootlessness—travel, “experiences,” and endless self-development—so young adults resist putting down roots.
During the 1990s, couples in their twenties accepted these responsibilities as part of growing up. They scraped together down payments, took on fixer-uppers, and built equity over time. Today’s cohort waits until they can afford a move-in-ready home that suits their curated lifestyle. Those expectations, not just prices, drive the age upward.
When adulthood doesn’t start at eighteen
It wasn’t always this way. Cultures across history have recognized the late teen years as the beginning of adult responsibility. The Jewish bar and bat mitzvah mark spiritual adulthood at twelve or thirteen. Medieval apprenticeships began in the early teens. Even in early twentieth-century America, 18-year-olds ran farms, served in wars, and married. They were treated as young adults, not oversized children.
Education critic John Taylor Gatto argued that modern schooling manufactures dependence. By keeping teens in artificially age-segregated classrooms for thirteen years, we train them to follow instructions instead of taking initiative. We discourage responsibility and then wonder why twenty-five-year-olds still act like teenagers. The system produces extended adolescence by design.
When we tack on four to six years of college—with minimal real-world responsibility—we entrench dependency. Students rack up debt without gaining the experience needed to repay it. Parents often foot the bill, reinforcing the message that real life starts after college. Even graduate school or endless internships keep twentysomethings from entering the workforce full-time.
The data on four-year degrees confirms this: less than 40% of first-time students graduate within four years, while roughly 60% finish within six. It’s common for young adults to emerge with a degree at 24 or 25. Many are older if they change majors or take gap years. This drift doesn’t make them wiser; it simply pushes back the clock on earning and saving.
Parents are part of the problem—and the solution
Culture alone isn’t to blame. Parents have unintentionally engineered extended adolescence. In the 1990s, a teen with a driver’s license was expected to hold a part-time job, contribute to household chores, and start building adult skills. Today, we tell teens their “job” is school and socializing. We shield them from risk and responsibility because we think it’s safer. Ironically, that protection leaves them ill-equipped for adulthood.
Modern parents also pay for prolonged education, cover adult children’s bills, and even co-sign mortgages. According to NAR, 22% of first-time buyers rely on gifts or loans from family or friends for their down payment. When twenty-somethings know Mom and Dad will bail them out, there is less urgency to build wealth independently. Parents become enablers of delay instead of facilitators of growth.
We have to acknowledge this uncomfortable truth: 40-year-old first-time homebuyers aren’t simply victims of market forces; they are products of a culture and a parenting style that delays adulthood. When we treat 18-year-olds like children, we shouldn’t be surprised when they act like children at 25—and when they finally buy houses at 40.
It’s not the economy; it’s the timeline
None of this denies the reality of high housing costs or student loan debt. Yes, mortgage rates have risen; yes, starter homes are scarce; yes, wages haven’t kept pace with inflation. But those factors alone cannot explain why milestones across the board have moved by 5–12 years within a single generation.
Consider the chain reaction:
Marriage drift (from 26/24 to 30/28) reduces the number of dual-income households in the twenties.
Delayed child-bearing (average age at first birth rising from roughly 23–25 to 27–28) means couples don’t feel the pressure to settle down early.
Extended schooling (six-year bachelor’s degrees) postpones full-time work and credit building.
Parental support allows adult children to drift without consequence.
Layer those together and it becomes clear: homeownership happens at 40 because adulthood starts at 30.
We’re used to hearing, “Young people can’t buy houses because the economy is tough.” But if that were the primary cause, we would expect marriage, childbirth, and work to remain at the same ages while homeownership alone drifted. Instead, all of them moved together. The economy is downstream of a cultural choice to delay responsibility.
Restoring the timeline
So what do we do? My next several posts will unpack each piece of the puzzle. We’ll look at why the college timeline has become a holding pen, why marriage has been reframed as a “capstone” rather than a foundation, why child-bearing is delayed, and why our schools keep young adults in perpetual adolescence. In each case, I will argue that the solution lies not in waiting for society to change but in making intentional choices to reclaim the lost decade.
For now, consider a few preliminary steps:
Reframe the teenage years – Teens are capable of much more than our culture acknowledges. Give them real responsibilities—jobs, apprenticeships, household duties—and treat them as young adults. Responsibility builds confidence and competence.
Encourage early work – Part-time jobs in high school or during college are not beneath anyone. They teach punctuality, customer service, and financial discipline. Earning and saving at 16 instead of 26 can add tens of thousands of dollars to a down payment by age 25.
Reevaluate the role of college – A degree can be valuable, but it shouldn’t be a default holding pattern. Explore alternative paths—trades, entrepreneurship, apprenticeships—that allow young adults to build skills and incomes sooner. Four years (or six) of schooling may not be the wisest use of time and money.
Model financial discipline – Parents should show, not just tell, how to live within their means. Include teens in conversations about budgets, mortgages, and investing. Teach them that owning a home isn’t about lifestyle envy but about stability and stewardship.
Prioritize lifelong relationships early – Encourage young adults to see marriage and family not as afterthoughts but as core building blocks. A stable marriage in one’s early twenties can be a platform for emotional and financial resilience.
The data make one thing clear: time is not neutral. A lost decade in your twenties is a lost decade of compounding, growth, and formation. The 40-year-old first-time homebuyer is a warning sign that our timeline for adulthood is off. If we want different outcomes for our children, we have to choose a different timeline.
Looking ahead
This post sets the stage for a deeper exploration of delayed adulthood. We’ll take on marriage next: why the culture now treats it as a capstone to be pursued once you’re “complete” and why that mindset is impractical. We’ll dig into the myth that you must be fully formed before you can commit your life to someone else. We’ll also examine the drift in child-bearing and the ways in which our educational institutions have turned four-year degrees into six years of daycare.
At every step, the underlying issue will be the same: extended adolescence steals years and momentum. It robs young people of the compounding benefits of starting early. It deprives them of the meaning that comes from taking on responsibility while still youthful. And it leaves them entering middle age in roles they should have occupied a decade earlier.
The good news? This drift is reversible. Parents can choose to raise young adults instead of overgrown children. Teens can embrace responsibility and competence sooner. Young couples can commit to each other and build families without waiting for some mythical state of perfection. Families who take those steps often find themselves living a different timeline: one where homeownership happens in the twenties, not the forties; where marriages grow up instead of blowing up; where children come while parents are young enough to enjoy them.
If you’re tired of waiting for the economy to fix your life, then don’t forfeit the timeline to the culture. Take it back.
