National Association of Realtors

First-time homebuyers accounted for a record low 21% of home purchases annually.

And this is according to the National Association of Realtors, NAR, which is really locked in on the housing market.

The median age for first-time buyers reached 40 for the first time.

In the 1980s, the median age for first-time homebuyer was in their upper 20s.

But I think we try to share as much poignant, relevant information as we can because I think that some of this information gets out from different sources.

What was interesting about this particular post was it was from the National Association of Realtors data.

And a lot of the people who criticized it were in real estate adjacent markets, which I thought was strange.

It's like, why criticize the data here? Here's what I posted.

Pending home sales hit a record low.

National Association of Realtors Pending Home Sales Index Seasonally Adjusted from 2001 to 2026 shows you at a current number of 66.

They used 2001 as 100 as kind of like your baseline for a normal market.

And then everything else is kind of a derivative of that normal market, 66 being the lowest that it has ever been.

Here's what I'd rather you think about.

In the National Association of Realtors' most recent annual survey, first-time buyers were just 21% of home purchases, a record low.

And the typical one was 40 years old.

If that's you, you waited a long time for this house.

All four regions of the country saw declines.

NAR's Chief Economist Lawrence Yoon pointed to fast-rising mortgage rates as a key reason for the slowdown, which may be prompting buyers and sellers to put their plans on hold.

We're also seeing weakness in new home construction.

Housing starts, which measure how many homes begin construction, fell 5.2% in September to an annual pace of 1.22 million homes.

That's happening now.

How about Lawrence Yoon? If you don't know who he is, he's the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.

He has updated his forecast.

Well, dude, it's almost the end of the year.

But here's the part of the report I think matters most for investors.

NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yoon, noted that the limited number of distressed properties is keeping home prices steady.

That one observation explains a lot about this market.

Activity is at a record low, yet prices are holding.

So sales are slow.

And the National Association of Realtors reported last week that existing home sales in September ran at an annual pace of just under 4 million homes.

So the NAR's chief economist said August and September were two slowest months of the year, and the last few years have been some of the slowest years for home sales in about three decades, about 30 years.

Okay.

2025, there were 4.2 million transactions.

NAR research, and I'm giving, I actually have the real numbers.

63% real numbers came from the relationships the agents had.

That left 37.