Eye On Housing
According to the Census’s Bureau’s American Housing Survey, 13.7 million people purchased a home in the two years prior to 2013, twice as many as did in the two years prior to 2011. Eleven percent of the homes were new homes and 43 percent of the buyers were purchasing their first home.
Given recent market changes, new home buyers are older, make more money, and are purchasing bigger, more expensive homes. On the other hand, first-time home buyers are younger, make less money, and are purchasing smaller, less expensive homes. New home buyers are a median of 40 years old, while the median for first-time buyers is 32. New home buyers have a median income of $84,987, while the median income for first-time buyers is $62,987. The median value of a new home purchased is $231,000, while the median value of homes purchased by first-time buyers is $146,000. The median home size for a new home is 2,200 square feet, while the median size of a home purchased by a first-time buyers is 1,600 square feet.
New home buyers potentially need larger homes, because they have larger families. The new home buyer has an average of 2.93 people in their home, compared to 2.68 people for first-time buyers. The household size for all buyers, which steadily declined from 2.84 people in 2001 to 2.61 people in 2011, saw its first increase to 2.71 people in 2013. The following graph details the history of the household size for all home buyers, new home buyers, first-time home buyers, and non-moving owners.
A deeper investigation into home buyers and the homes they are buying can be found here.
Great blog. Thanks for sharing!