If you are a first time home buyer who has been waiting longer than you expected, you are not alone and you are not behind. The National Association of REALTORSยฎ just confirmed what many families already feel: the typical first time home buyer in America is now 40 years old, and first time buyers represent just 21% of all primary residence purchases, the lowest share NAR has recorded since they began tracking it in 1981. Before the Great Recession, that share was nearly 40%. If you have been wondering why homeownership feels harder to reach than it should, the data agrees with you. And if you have been searching for first time home buyer down payment assistance or a more realistic path forward, that is exactly what this article is going to show you.
This is not a story about young people who do not want to own homes. It is a story about a housing market that has made the first step harder to reach than it has ever been. And it is a story about what families are doing about it.
You Have Not Been Doing Anything Wrong
Before we get into the data, we want to say something directly: if you are 35, 40, or even 45 and you have not yet purchased your first home, you have not failed. You have been navigating one of the most difficult housing affordability environments in modern history.
The median first time home buyer was in their late 20s in the 1980s. By 2010 it was around 30. Today it is 40. That is not a generation that lost ambition. That is a generation that encountered rising rents, limited starter home inventory, student debt, higher insurance costs, and down payment requirements that kept moving just out of reach. Many spent years doing exactly the right things: saving, building credit, stabilizing income. And the goalpost kept moving.
The path into homeownership has genuinely gotten longer. Understanding that is important, because the families who eventually find their way through do so not by waiting for the market to become easier, but by finding a smarter path into it.
What Every Year of Waiting Is Actually Costing You
This is the part worth sitting with honestly. Buying a first home at 40 instead of 30 does not simply change the date of a transaction. It changes what follows.
A homeowner who enters ownership earlier has more years for home values to appreciate in their favor, more time to pay down principal, more equity accumulated before the next move, and more potential to carry housing wealth into retirement. Someone who enters a decade later has less time for that process to compound. The math is not punishing, but it is real.
Every year spent paying rent is a year of building wealth for someone else. You’re paying their mortgage. You’re funding their retirement. And you’re doing it in one of the fastest-appreciating real estate markets in the Southeast, which means you’re also watching potential gains walk right out the door with your rent payment.
This is not meant to create panic. It is meant to create clarity. Because for many families, the gap between where they are today and where they need to be to purchase is smaller than they think.
The Down Payment Is the Biggest Misconception
NAR’s data shows that first time home buyers put down a median of 10% on their purchase. But many families are waiting because they believe they need 20% and they are nowhere close. That belief is one of the most expensive misconceptions in real estate today.
Here is what NAR found when they asked successful first time home buyers where their down payment came from: 59% used personal savings, 26% used financial assets like investment accounts, and 22% used a gift or loan from family or friends. Multiple sources. Accumulated over years. But the key word is multiple, because very few families assembled that down payment from savings alone.
More importantly, a traditional 10 to 20% down payment is not the only path. At Burson Home Advisors, we work with trusted partner programs that may allow qualified buyers to purchase a home with as little as 1% down. For the right family with the right credit profile, first time home buyer down payment assistance can dramatically shorten the timeline between where you are today and the day you hold your keys.
Two Paths Worth Knowing About
At Burson Home Advisors, we begin every consultation by helping families understand which path actually fits their situation. For first time home buyers specifically, there are two options worth knowing about:
Direct Purchase with as Little as 1% Down
If you have a qualifying credit profile and you are ready to purchase now, you may not need to wait as long as you think. Our trusted partner may allow qualifying first time home buyers to purchase a home with as little as 1% down. No years of saving for a 20% down payment. No waiting for the market to soften. Just a clear, documented path into the home you are ready to own. A soft credit pull, which has no impact on your credit score whatsoever, is all it takes to find out whether this path is open to you.
Lease to Own for First Time Buyers Who Need More Time
If you are not quite ready to purchase today but homeownership is absolutely your goal, a lease to own program may be exactly the bridge you need. You move into a home you love, your monthly payment is lower than a traditional mortgage for a comparable home, you share in the home’s appreciation from the day you move in, and you always have the exclusive right to purchase. In most cases, that right is an option and not an obligation, giving you genuine flexibility if your circumstances shift. It is not renting while you wait. It is a documented pathway to homeownership that begins working for your financial future from Day One.
The Families Who Get There Are Not Luckier. They Are Better Guided.
Here is what the NAR data does not show: the families who successfully entered homeownership in the last decade did not all have advantages that other families lacked. Many of them simply found a team that helped them understand which path was actually open to them and walked alongside them until they got there.
The repeat buyer today has equity, a larger down payment, and financial advantages accumulated over years of homeownership. The first time home buyer is assembling their purchase from savings, income, and whatever programs are available to help close the gap. That is exactly the gap Burson Home Advisors was built to help bridge.
We have helped over 130 families find their way into homeownership across the Raleigh-Durham-Triad-Charlotte area. Many of them had been waiting longer than they planned. Many had talked to lenders and been told to come back later. Many had assumed the path was closed. It was not.
The first time home buyer has not disappeared. They have simply been waiting for someone to show them a door they did not know was open. We know exactly where it is.
The Right Time to Find Out Is Before You Wait Another Year
If you are a first time home buyer in the Raleigh-Durham Triangle, the Triad, or the Charlotte metro, here is the most useful thing we can offer you: one conversation. Not a credit pull. Not a commitment. Not a sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about where you are, what programs may be available to you, and whether the timeline you have in your head is actually as long as you think.
For some families, it will be. For others, the path is closer than they imagined.
The only way to know is to ask.
Twenty-five million adults are waiting for the housing market to make room for them. Some of them do not have to wait as long as they think. Let’s find out if you’re one of them.
Book a complimentary consultation with Burson Home Advisors today. All heart and strategy.
Learn more about Burson Home Advisors’ lease to own program in this press release.
About Tamera Nielsen
Tamera Nielsen is a licensed real estate advisor and lease-to-own specialist serving the Triad and greater North Carolina. As the founder of Burson Home Advisors, she helps first-time buyers, single parents, and families who’ve been turned down by traditional lenders find a real path to homeownership. Her Red Carpet One & Done Tourโข approach and hands-on negotiation style have helped clients across Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, and beyond close on homes they were told they couldn’t have.