First-Time Homebuyer Watch: 1st Quarter 2019

Homeownership rate of householders aged 35 to 39, first quarter 2019: 58.3%

The Census Bureau is back on schedule in releasing its homeownership statistics, with the first quarter numbers showing little change in the overall homeownership rate. The latest numbers suggest that the homeownership rate of 35-to-39-year-olds is inching upward, however. In the first quarter of 2019, the age group's homeownership rate remained above the 58 percent threshold, a line crossed in the fourth quarter of 2018 for the first time since 2011. The homeownership rate of the age group peaked at 65.7 percent in 2007. The rate dipped as low as 54.6 percent in 2015, in the aftermath of the Great Recession. The recent upward trend in the homeownership rate of the age group is likely due to the full-employment economy. 

What about their younger counterparts? Householders aged 30 to 34 were once the nation's first-time home buyers—defined as the age group in which the homeownership rate first surpasses 50 percent. The homeownership rate of 30-to-34-year-olds fell to 47.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, after surpassing 48 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2018. These bobbles are not statistically significant. The homeownership rate of the age group peaked at 55.3 percent in 2007, fell below 50 percent in 2011, and has been stuck below that level ever since. 


Nationally, the homeownership rate was 64.2 percent in the first quarter of 2019, identical to the rate one year earlier.

Source: Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey