Today’s First Time Homebuyers

Meet the new first-time buyer. They’re younger, more likely to be single, signing for smaller loans than their predecessors, putting more money down, getting fixed-rate mortgages, and planning to stay in their houses longer. What they saw during the housing collapse has turned them into a cohort of financially conservative buyers who could help prevent another cycle of bubble and burst.

Compared with 10 years ago, first-time homebuyers are more frequently single (18 percent in 2001 versus 22 percent today) and a little younger (average age of 31 in 2001 versus 30 now). And fewer of them are married couples with children — in 2001, they made up 33 percent of first-time home buyers; today their share is only 26 percent.

Entry-level buyers also are more likely than before to use their own savings for the down payment — 57 percent did so in 2007 versus 63 percent in 2009, according to a report last year by the National Association of Home Builders. There’s even a growing group who are saying no to the banks and are paying all cash for their first house — their number rose from about 7 percent in 2009 to 11.4 percent so far in 2011, according to the NAR.

To read the Entire Article from The Fiscal Times click here

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