Millennials lose out to baby boomers in U.S. housing market

Baby boomers dominated the U.S. homebuying market last year, making up a greater share of buyers than the larger millennial generation, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors.

Those older buyers represented 42% of all homebuyers compared to millennials at 29%, according to the national survey of nearly 5,400 buyers who purchased a primary residence during the 12-month period ending in June 2024.

That was a shift from a year earlier when millennials, or those born between 1980 to 1998, made up 38% of homebuyers, while baby boomers, or those born between 1946 to 1964, were 31% of all buyers, according to NAR.

On Long Island, real estate agents said the typical homebuyer has gotten older but not quite as old as the report suggests for the rest of the country. Agents said some of those older buyers may be selling homes on Long Island and purchasing in other parts of the country.

Nationwide, rising home prices and mortgage rates have priced out many would-be homebuyers, and the market is much more favorable to repeat buyers, said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist at NAR.

That is because in competitive real estate markets, like Long Island’s, many sellers have multiple offers to choose from.

“We really have seen first-time homebuyers squeezed in this tight housing market,” Lautz said. “Until we have more housing inventory, first-time homebuyers are likely going to continue to suffer.”

Young adults losing out

Leah Jackson, a 31-year-old attorney, said her dream of homeownership feels far off and she believes she may have to move away from Long Island to make a purchase.

 I n March, Jackson and her 9-month-old son moved into her childhood home in Coram with her mom, moving from a two-bedroom condo in Middle Island, where she was paying nearly $2,500 a month in rent.

“The goal is to save up to either rent another place or purchase but at this point, where that’s going to be, I don’t know,” Jackson said.

In NAR’s most recent survey, the median U.S. homebuyer was three years older, at 38, than in the previous year, with first-time buyers representing a shrinking share of the buyer pool.

That shift could have longer-term effects on the ability of millennials to build wealth, Lautz said.

“One of the big implications here is that for young adults, they’re losing out on housing equity gains,” she said.

Long Island homebuyers have seen their potential monthly payments soar as both prices and mortgage rates rose over the past three years. The median price of a single-family home sold in February in Nassau County was $795,000, while the Suffolk median price matched a record high at $680,000, according to OneKey MLS.

Meanwhile, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hasn’t dipped below 6% since September 2022. It was 6.65% for the week ending Thursday, according to Freddie Mac.

Repeat buyers are at a significant advantage because sellers have more confidence in buyers with larger down payments, said Jeffrey Jimenez, who leads a team of agents at eXp Realty, specializing in sales in the tri-hamlet area of Mastic, Mastic Beach and Shirley.

Jimenez said he has noticed the typical buyer is older than those he used to work with about a decade ago, but he said he hasn’t seen as many baby boomer clients locally as the report suggests are buying nationwide. He estimated the typical buyer purchasing his listings is now in their mid-30s to mid-40s, while some older Long Islanders whose homes he has helped sell have moved out of state to places, such as Florida and Texas.

“If you own a house and you’re thinking about upsizing, or even downsizing, you have all the leverage in the world,” he said.

Baby boomers who choose to sell and buy elsewhere on Long Island are often competing for a limited number of condos, said Jamie Gorman, a real estate agent at Charles Rutenberg Realty in Plainview.

The median price of a condo in Nassau County among 50 sales in February was $799,500 in February, according to OneKey MLS.

While seniors leaving single-family homes can free themselves from the need to make repairs and maintain a house, they often have to put a sizable chunk of the proceeds from their sale toward their next home, Gorman said.

“Unfortunately on Long Island, it’s not downsizing financially, it’s downsizing your responsibilities,” she said.