Baby Boomers Pass Millennials as Top Group of Home Buyers

Home buyers are getting grayer — and richer. Millennials — people aged 27 to 45 — have been the generational group making up the largest percentage of homebuyers for most of the past decade. Not anymore. Their parents — cash-flush baby boomers aged 61 to 79 — stormed back to retake the lead last year, according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report.

Baby boomers accounted for 42% of U.S. home sales between July 2023 and July 2024, topping millennials, who accounted for 29%, down sharply from the previous year's 38%, The New York Times reports. The share of Gen-Xers (ages 46 to 60) remained steady at 24%.

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% of all buyers, down from 32% 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,” says Brandi Snowden, director of member and consumer survey research at NAR.

There's another factor at work. Baby boomers, by and large, simply have more cash in the bank. And New York City isn't the only place where cash is king. While 51% of older boomers (ages 71 to 79) and 39% of younger boomers (ages 61 to 70) nationwide paid for their homes with cash in 2023-24, more than 90% of buyers under the age of 45 (all millennials and Gen Z-ers) relied on financing and family support, according to the report.

Another noteworthy trend is that multigenerational home buying is on the rise. The 2025 report showed that 17% 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% a year ago.