Home Seller and Home Buyer Generational Trends

This post will offer insights into the differences and similarities across generations of home buyers and home sellers. The home buyer and home seller data are taken from the annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Source: The National Association of Realtors 2021

Millennial buyers 22 to 30 years (Younger Millennials) and buyers 31 to 40 years (Older Millennials) continue to make up the largest share of home buyers at 37%: Older Millennials at 23% and Younger Millennials at 14% of the share of home buyers. Millennials have been the largest share of buyers since the 2014 report.

Buyers 41 to 55 (Gen Xers) consisted of 24% of recent home buyers. This group continues to be the highest-earning home buyers with a median income of $113,300 in 2019.

For the report, buyers 56 to 65 (Younger Baby Boomers) and buyers 66 to 74 (Older Baby Boomers) were broken into two separate categories as they have differing demographics and buying behaviors. Buyers 56 to 65 consisted of 18% of recent buyers and buyers 66 to 74 consisted of 14% of recent buyers.

Buyers 75 to 95 (The Silent Generation) represented the smallest share of buyers at 5%.

All generations of buyers continued to utilize a real estate agent or broker as their top resource to help them buy and sell their homes. The following graphs and charts offer a variety of perspectives on this phenomenon.