Survey Says Flexibility is 2025’s Home Buying Hack

Buying a home — especially your first — can be a huge financial and mental undertaking. While homeownership comes with wealth-building benefits, less-than-ideal conditions may intimidate potential home buyers and even give you analysis paralysis in your search.

In 2025, house hunters grapple with affordability hurdles, high interest rates, and, despite rebounding inventory levels, a dearth of starter properties.

However, The Mortgage Reports’ Summer 2025 First-Time Home Buyer Survey revealed common roadblocks and showed flexibility might be the trick to purchasing your first property this year and beyond.

What we learned from recent home buyers

Overall, rent burnout (58.18%) and the lack of returns for all the money spent sparked the most home searches — greatly overshadowing family growth (18.55%) and the desire to build equity (10.55%).

Although 2025’s conditions shifted toward buyers’ favor, affordability and for-sale options remain strained in many markets. Nearly half (43.14%) of first-time buyers settled for a different location than where they originally wanted, with 62.75% saying there weren’t enough properties in their price range.

This led to borrowers making tradeoffs in order to afford a home. A 23.53% share purchased a fixer-upper, 21.57% bought in a cheaper area, 15.69% took on a longer commute, and 5.88% delayed major life events like a wedding.

Despite dealing with financial deterrents, a 78.43% share funded their down payment with personal savings. Whether due to unfamiliarity or ineligibility, only 27.45% of recent home buyers leveraged down payment assistance programs (compared to 65.31% of renters planning to use DPA). People don’t always know what they don’t know. Working with a professional could help fill the knowledge gaps, give you expert insights, and bring to light any potential levers to pull.

For the demographics among those surveyed, about 18% of recent home buyers fell into the Generation Z age range. Millennials occupied the majority at 57%, Gen Xers came next at 24%, followed by 2% for Baby Boomers. Meanwhile, nearly 63% of 2025 home buyers identified themselves as female, compared to 33% for men. The remaining 4% was split evenly between non-binary and those who didn’t disclose their gender.

The bottom line

Navigating the housing market is rarely easy. Affordability constraints pushed many prospective home buyers to the sidelines in recent years, waiting mostly in vain for a lower barrier to entry.

But people are still buying houses and The Mortgage Reports’ Summer 2025 First-Time Home Buyer Survey showed how borrowers forged their paths to homeownership.

For a look at the complete survey results, click here.