MARKET INTELLIGENCE  /  SEPTEMBER 2026  /  GREATER CINCINNATI

THE BUYER POOL GOT OLDER

NAR’s 2026 Generational Trends Report puts Baby Boomers at 42% of buyers and 55% of sellers — and shows they are moving toward people, not away from square footage.

Roxanne Qualls, Executive Sales Vice President  ·  Sibcy Cline Realtors

Every year the National Association of REALTORS® publishes its Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, and most years it confirms what those of us working in the market already suspect. The 2026 edition is different. It rearranges the picture.

The buyer pool has aged. Baby Boomers, whom NAR now splits into two groups, together accounted for 42% of all recent home buyers — the largest generational block in the market. Gen X followed at 25%, with a median age of 54. Millennials, who dominated these reports for most of the last decade, made up 26% between their younger and older halves.

On the selling side the concentration is sharper still. Boomers were 55% of all sellers. Younger Boomers alone — ages 61 to 70 — were 34% of everyone who sold a home last year, more than any other single group by a wide margin.

SHARE OF BUYERS AND SELLERS BY GENERATION

Percent of all recent home buyers and sellers, 12 months ending June 2025

• Gen Z, ages 18 to 26 — 4% of buyers, 2% of sellers
• Younger Millennials, 27 to 35 — 11% of buyers, 5% of sellers
• Older Millennials, 36 to 45 — 15% of buyers, 11% of sellers
• Gen X, 46 to 60 — 25% of buyers, 23% of sellers
• Younger Boomers, 61 to 70 — 27% of buyers, 34% of sellers
• Older Boomers, 71 to 79 — 15% of buyers, 21% of sellers
• Silent Generation, 80 to 100 — 4% of buyers, 4% of sellers

 

Why People Moved — and Why That Reordering Matters

The most useful finding in this year’s report is not a share of market. It is a motive.

For buyers aged 45 and younger, the primary reason for purchasing a home remains the straightforward one: the desire to own a home of their own. But for buyers 46 and older, the top reason is the desire to be closer to friends and family. The desire for a smaller home comes second.

That ordering deserves more attention than it usually gets. We tend to frame the later-life move as a subtraction — fewer stairs, less yard, lower maintenance. The data says something warmer and more specific. These moves are organized around proximity to people. The smaller house is the means. Being ten minutes from a grandchild is the motive.

The distances corroborate it, and here the split between the two Boomer groups matters. The typical buyer moved 20 miles from their previous residence. Younger Boomers, ages 61 to 70, moved the furthest of any generation at a median of 45 miles — far enough to cross county lines, close enough to still make Sunday dinner. Older Boomers moved 39 miles and the Silent Generation 30, while Younger and Older Millennials moved just 10.

That gradient is worth sitting with. The distance shrinks as buyers get older, which fits the pattern: the move toward family tends to happen in the first years of retirement, not the last. And it shows up in what these buyers say they want from a neighborhood. Convenience to friends and family was named by 52% of buyers aged 61 to 70, 56% of those 71 to 79, and 64% of those over 80 — against just 35% of Gen X.

The later-life move is not about square footage. It is about who you want to be ten minutes from.

The Multigenerational Household Is Now a Gen X Phenomenon

Fourteen percent of all buyers purchased a multigenerational home — one that will house adult siblings, adult children, parents, or grandparents. Gen X led every generation at 19%.

Their reasons are worth reading closely. Across all buyers, the most common reason for a multigenerational purchase was health and caretaking of aging parents, at 41%, followed by cost savings at 29% and children or relatives over 18 moving back into the house at 27%. But among Gen X buyers specifically, the order flips: children or relatives over 18 moving back in came first at 36%, with caring for aging parents close behind at 35%.

This is the sandwich generation rendered in housing data. Gen X buyers carry the second-highest median household income of any generation at $125,000, and they are also the group most likely to be solving for two other households at the same time. That is a genuinely hard search: a first-floor bedroom against a school district, a separate entrance against a commute, privacy against the very reason for the move.

First-Time Buyers Fell to a 45-Year Low

First-time buyers made up 21% of the market, down from 24% a year ago and the lowest share since NAR began collecting this data in 1981.

The report is fairly clear about the mechanism. Saving for a down payment was the most difficult step in the entire process for 30% of Younger Millennial buyers, against 11% of buyers overall. Sixteen percent of all buyers carry student loan debt with a median balance of $30,000; among Younger Millennials that share rises to 39%. And while 46% of down payments came from savings, another 44% came from the proceeds of a previous home sale — an option available only to people who already own.

Put plainly, equity is doing the heavy lifting in this market, and the people who have it are pulling further ahead of the people who do not. Seventy-four percent of buyers financed their purchase overall, but more than 90% of buyers aged 27 to 45 financed, compared with 54% of Older Boomers and 48% of the Silent Generation.

I do not have a tidy solution to that, and I am wary of anyone who claims one. What I do think is that it argues for taking first-time buyers more seriously rather than less: earlier conversations, honest math, and real patience through a search that is measurably harder than it was for the generation ahead of them.

What Everyone Actually Bought

The typical home purchased in the last year was 1,900 square feet, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and built in 1994. Detached single-family homes made up 76% of all purchases, the most common choice in every generation, though Older Boomers and the Silent Generation bought duplexes and condominiums at higher rates than anyone else.

Size tracks with life stage in a way that is almost too neat. Older Millennials bought the largest homes at a median 2,100 square feet. Younger Millennials bought the smallest at 1,600. The Silent Generation bought the newest, with a typical build year of 2000, at 1,800 square feet. Seventeen percent of buyers over 60 purchased senior-related housing, rising to 23% of Older Boomers and 31% of the Silent Generation.

Income follows the same arc. The median household income across all buyers was $109,000, but it peaks with Older Millennials at $132,700 and Gen X at $125,000, then falls steadily through Younger Boomers at $101,700, Older Boomers at $83,900, and the Silent Generation at $81,300. Gen Z buyers, at $76,000, are entering with the least.

Buyers expect to stay a median of 15 years. Gen X and Younger Boomers expect 20. Gen Z and the Silent Generation expect 10 — the two ends of the age range, for opposite reasons.

The Search Is Still the Hard Part

Every generation begins the same way: looking online for properties. The Silent Generation was the only group meaningfully more likely to contact an agent as a first step. The typical search ran 10 weeks — eight for Younger Millennials, twelve for Gen Z and Younger Boomers.

And then this, which is the number I take most personally: for more than half of all buyers, 56%, the most difficult step in the entire home buying process was finding the right property. Not the financing. Not the paperwork. Finding the house.

Which is presumably why 88% of buyers purchased through an agent, a figure consistent across every demographic group in the report, and why 91% of sellers listed with one. What buyers wanted most was help finding the right home (50%), followed by help negotiating the terms of sale and price (13%). Younger buyers leaned hardest on understanding the process itself — 71% of Younger Millennials and 61% of Gen Z said that was the most valuable thing their agent provided.

Referrals remain how most people find an agent, particularly younger buyers: 49% of Younger Millennials and 44% of Gen Z came through a friend, neighbor, or relative. Older buyers were more likely to return to someone they had worked with before. Ninety-one percent of buyers said they would use their agent again or recommend them, and 87% of sellers said they would definitely or probably recommend theirs.

What I Take From It

Three things.

First, if you are thinking about a move in your sixties or seventies, you are not late to anything. You are the largest and most active group in this market, and the report says plainly that most people in your position are moving toward someone rather than away from something. That is worth naming out loud when you start planning, because it changes which neighborhoods and which floor plans actually belong on the list.

Second, if you are in your fifties and quietly running numbers on a house that works for three generations, you are not unusual. You are the trend. That search deserves more than a filtered listing feed.

Third, if you are trying to buy your first home right now, the market is harder than it has been in the four and a half decades NAR has tracked this. That is not a reason to give up on it. It is a reason to start the conversation earlier than feels necessary.

Cincinnati is a city I have spent a career learning — its neighborhoods, its policy, its economic development, and the way all three quietly move home values. If any of the above describes where you are, I would welcome the conversation. No timeline required.

A note on the data. All figures are national. NAR mailed a 120-question survey in July 2025 and received 6,103 responses from buyers who purchased a primary residence between July 2024 and June 2025; income is reported for 2024. Greater Cincinnati patterns differ from national averages in several respects, and any decision about a specific property should rest on local MLS data rather than a national median.