First-time homebuyers accounted for 49 percent of Newrez’s purchase loans in 2025, down from 56 percent in 2022, according to new data the mortgage lender released Monday to coincide with America’s 250th anniversary.
Newrez, a top-five originator and servicer owned by Rithm Capital, paired the originations data with a Morning Consult survey it commissioned, finding that 81 percent of U.S. adults still consider homeownership part of the American Dream.
The company surveyed 2,203 adults June 12 to 14, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The two data sets tell slightly different stories. The survey captures sentiment, while the originations data captures who’s actually closing.
And on that second measure, the share of first-timers in Newrez’s book has been sliding even as the buyers who do close look increasingly stretched to get there.
First-time buyers are working harder
First-time buyers in Newrez’s 2025 book had a median age of 33 — unchanged from 2022 — but their median income climbed from $61,728 to $77,208 over that span, a 25 percent jump.
Their median purchase price rose 10 percent to $345,741. Median down payments stayed thin at 4.85 percent of the purchase price.
A Redfin study released in February found that the median age of first-time homebuyers was 35 in 2025, down from 36 a year earlier and from a peak of 38 in 2018. Redfin’s numbers skewed younger than the National Association of Realtors’, which pegged the median age of first-time buyers at 40 in a November 2025 report.
Repeat buyers, meanwhile, pulled further ahead, according to Newrez’s research. Their median purchase price rose 11 percent to $482,000, while their median income jumped 26 percent to $110,139. The median age of repeat buyers also rose from 42 to 44 years.
Their median down payment ticked slightly lower, from 15 percent to 14.82 percent of the purchase price. It’s a sign that even move-up buyers are stretching every available dollar rather than writing bigger checks.
Put those two cohorts side by side, and the shift in Newrez’s book looks less like first-time buyers getting squeezed out and more like repeat buyers extending their advantage, arriving with more income growth, buying pricier homes and putting down less to do it.
Resilience or erosion?
Bob Johnson, Newrez’s head of originations, framed the data as evidence that the market is still working for new buyers, not a warning sign.
“First-time buyers continue to represent a significant portion of our business, which speaks to the resilience of homeownership demand,” Johnson said in a statement. “While affordability remains a challenge, these buyers are finding practical ways to enter the market and achieve homeownership, showing that the path is still there for those looking to buy.”
That’s the framing one would expect from a lender’s own press release. Whether a seven-point drop in first-time buyer share over three years reads as resilience or erosion probably depends on which side of that gap a given buyer stands on.
Newrez’s data is drawn from its own originations portfolio, not a national sample. It’s a top-five lender’s book, but still one company’s book.
