Aspiring homeowners in the U.S. now face a seven-year wait to save for a typical downpayment, a marked improvement from the peak of 12 years recorded in 2022, according to new data released Monday by Realtor.com.
While the timeline has shortened due to cooling home price growth and modest affordability gains, the path to homeownership remains steep compared to historical standards. The current seven-year waiting period is almost double the pre-pandemic norm, driven by a combination of stubbornly high home prices and a personal savings rate that lags behind 2019 levels.
“Although conditions have improved since 2022, today’s timeline shows that saving for a home takes meaningfully longer than it did before the pandemic, especially in high-cost markets,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, in a press release accompanying the analysis.
The extended timeline is largely a function of capital. In the third quarter of 2019, the typical buyer paid approximately $13,900 for a downpayment. By the third quarter of 2025, that figure had more than doubled to $30,400.
Such an increase has significantly expanded the time required to accumulate the necessary funds.
At the same time, households are saving less of their income than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. personal savings rate has averaged 5.1% of income in 2025, below the 6.5% pre-pandemic norm and historical standards.
There is little indication these adverse conditions will abate.
“A return to the 3–4 year saving timeline seen in the 2010s would likely require some combination of meaningfully higher savings rates, materially lower down payment norms (through price declines or smaller down payment percentages), or income growth that outpaces both,” said Hannah Jones, senior economic analyst at Realtor.com, in a statement provided to Scotsman Guide.
The report highlights a stark geographic divide in affordability. In high-cost coastal areas, saving for a downpayment remains a multidecade endeavor. For example, prospective buyers in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro area in California face a timeline of 36.5 years, while those in the nearby San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area face a 36.2 year wait.
In these markets, the typical downpayment alone often exceeds a full year of household income.
Conversely, Southern metros and regions with a strong military presence offer much faster tracks to ownership. In San Antonio, for instance, the typical time to save for a downpayment is just 1.3 years, while Virginia Beach, Va., requires around two years.
This has led to interesting location-based trends in homebuying. For instance, Jones told Scotsman Guide that recent data reveals how prospective homebuyers from the “West and Northeast are the most likely to search for homes outside their metro areas. While out-of-market shopping has cooled from its 2024 peak, it remains elevated, suggesting that buyers in high-priced regions are still looking beyond their immediate markets in search of affordability.”
Military hubs benefit significantly from widespread Department of Veteran Affairs loan usage, which often allows buyers to purchase with little or no downpayment.
Other affordable markets include Memphis, Tenn., and Houston, where solid household income relative to lower downpayment requirements make homeownership more attainable.
“Saving consistently, even in small amounts, is a meaningful first step toward homeownership,” Jones noted in the report’s press release. “In today’s market, building that financial cushion can make a real difference when buyers are ready to act.”
