Century 21 released a report a few weeks ago that I missed but still think its timely. The CENTURY 21® [Homebuyer Survey [Cendant]](http://www.cendant.com/media/press_release.cgi?category=Real+Estate&release=12040):

>…reveals that baby boomers were driven to purchase their first home based on family reasons while Generation X and Y buyers are more likely to buy or have bought a home as a “safe investment.” In addition, Generation X and Y buyers tend to take longer to buy their first home as compared to baby boomers. Today’s Generation Y buyers are also purchasing first homes at a younger age than their Generation X and baby boomer counterparts.

Length of Time to Purchase Home
Baby boomers were the quickest first time home shoppers polled, averaging 4.3 months to buy their first home, followed by Generation X at 4.6 months and Generation Y at 5.4 months.

Length of Stay
Baby boomers (26 percent) are more likely to stay in their first home for more than 10 years as compared to Generation X (13 percent) and Generation Y (9 percent).

Quite often these corporate surveys can end of being self serving and misleading, but this one doesn’t feel like it to me. It was a _national study of U.S. first-time homebuyers, including first-time buyers in their first year of homeownership along with active first-time home shoppers, between March 17 and March 31, 2006. A total of 1,514 respondents completed an online survey._

One Comment

  1. John Philip Mason May 12, 2006 at 8:58 am

    The study defines Generation Y as those born from 1979 to 1994. So they would now be 12 to 27 years old. Let’s hope they didn’t include too many 12 year olds in the survey.

    On a more serious note, the younger generations are taking longer to find a first time home and are paying a higher percent of their income to purchase that home. This may not be a good omen for real estate during the next several years. Remember, in order for existing home owners to move up, we all need someone to buy our “first time homes.”

Comments are closed.