The median household income required of home-buyers jumped into the six-figure category for only the second time ever in the National Association of Realtors’ annual Profile of Buyers and Sellers.
The rate of $107,000 in the new document – which represents activity from July 2022 to June 2023 – is up from $88,000 a year before.
The nearly $20,000 uptick in a single year is reflective both of increasing home costs and higher interest rates, and benefits those with the resources to muscle their way to contract acceptance.
“In a still-competitive housing market, more well-off home-buyers were able to have their bids accepted by offering larger down payments and even by paying cash,” said Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice president of research for the National Association of Realtors.
But that doesn’t mean first-time buyers aren’t in the mix. In fact, they made up 32 percent of all buyers during the period, up from a record low of 26 percent a year before.
“First-time buyers tiptoed back into the market” but their share of first-time buyers “is still near historic lows,” Lautz said.
The average age of first-time buyers (35) and repeat buyers (58) declined slightly from records set a year before. Seventy percent of buyers did not have a child under the age of 18 at home, the highest share recorded since the start of the survey in 1981, and 59 percent of recent buyers were married couples, the lowest share since 2010.
The typical down payment for first-time buyers was 8 percent, the highest since 1997. For repeat buyers, it was 19 percent, the highest since 2005.
The median distance between the home that recent buyers purchased and the home from which they moved was 20 miles, down from 50 miles a year before. The historic norm is about 15 miles.
