Over the past decade, millennials have emerged as the generational group making the most home purchases in the United States. At least, most of the time. A new report reveals that their parents, the baby boomers, stormed back last year to retake the lead.
According to the National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, baby boomers accounted for 42 percent of U.S. home sales between July 2023 and July 2024, topping millennials, who accounted for 29 percent.
This was a rare exception in recent years. Besides the 2025 edition, the only annual report since 2013 in which baby boomers were shown to have bought more homes than millennials was 2023. (Each annual report is based on a survey of buyers who purchased homes from July of one year to July of the next.)
In the 2025 report, baby boomers (ages 61 to 79) were followed by millennials age (ages 27 to 45), who experienced a stark one-year decline, from 38 percent of all home buyers to 29 percent. The share of Gen-Xers (ages 46 to 60) remained steady at 24 percent, while Gen Z-ers (ages 14 to 25) made up just 3 percent of buyers.
How did millennials lose their rank to baby boomers? One clue is that the percentage of first-time home buyers — primarily millennials, now in their child-rearing years — dropped to a historical low, making up 24 percent of all buyers, down from 32 percent the year before. And that’s no surprise: First-time buyers are “facing limited inventory, housing affordability challenges, and having difficulty saving for a down payment,” said Brandi Snowden, director of member and consumer survey research at N.A.R.
Baby boomers, by and large, simply have more cash in the bank. While 51 percent of older boomers (ages 71 to 79) and 39 percent of younger boomers (ages 61 to 70) paid for their homes with cash in 2023-24, more than 90 percent of buyers under the age of 45 (all millennials and Gen Z-ers) relied on financing and family support, according to the report.
Also notable: multigenerational home buying is on the rise. The 2025 report showed that 17 percent of buyers purchased homes suitable for multigenerational living in order to cut costs, tend to aging parents, or house adult children. That was up from 14 percent a year ago.
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