More First-Timers than Expected Are Now Buying Homes #realestate #homeownership

Source:  Associated Press

First-Time home buyers may be entering the market in greater numbers than industry watchers had assumed, according to a Zillow survey.  Over the past year, nearly half of home sales have gone to first-timers.  That's a much higher proportion than some other industry estimates had indicated.  And it comes as a surprise in part because ownership rates for adults under 34 are at their lowest levels since the government began tracking the figure in 1994.

Zillow's survey results suggest that the trend is shifting, and that some of this year's growth in home sales has come from a wave of college-educated couples in their 30s, who are the most common first-time buyers.  If the pattern in Zillow's survey holds, it could raise hopes that today's vast generation of 18-to-34-year-old millennials will help support the housing market as more of them move into their 30s.

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