Although the share of adults mulling a home purchase fell during fourth-quarter of 2019, the share of potential first-time homebuyers rose considerably, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
The share of adults considering a home purchase in the next 12 months was 11% in the past fourth quarter, down from 13% in fourth-quarter 2018. It’s the fifth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year drop — a trend that Rose Quint, assistant vice president for survey research at NAHB, said is likely fueled by low housing inventory. This share has dropped considerably since fourth-quarter 2017, when 24% of NAHB’s survey participants indicated that they were planning on buying a home within a year.
Among potential buyers, however, there was a distinctly larger share of would-be first-time buyers compared to the prior year. In fourth-quarter 2019, 63% of prospective buyers were first-timers, up 10 percentage points from the same period in 2018.
Get these articles in your inbox
Sign up for our daily newsletter
Get these articles in your inbox
Sign up for our daily newsletter
The first-time share among prospective buyers hovered around 60% for all of 2019. But the fourth quarter of last year represented the first time this share exceeded the 60% watermark in 2019.
Although millennials, at a 19% share of all prospective buyers, are the most likely generation to plan a home purchase in the next 12 months, members of Generation Z are beginning to make their presence felt in the homebuyer picture. Thirteen percent of prospective buyers belong to Generation Z, a larger percentage than Generation X (12%) or baby boomers (5%). Among the Gen Zers looking to buy a home, 88% are first-time buyers. That share drops to 78% for millennials as some of the older members of the cohort begin to look for their second or third homes.
Geographically, the percentage of prospective buyers who are first-timers is fairly consistent. Sixty-five percent of potential homebuyers in the Northeast regions would be buying their first home. In the South, West and Midwest regions, those shares are 64%, 62% and 61%, respectively.




