Homeowners at 23: How This Couple Overcame Housing Market Challenges
The Bottom Line
A couple in their early 20s leveraged every advantage to become ultra-young homeowners. Other buyers can do the same.
How old is the average homebuyer?
Not 30. Not 40. Not even 50. The average age of a homebuyer in 2024 was 56, according to research from the National Association of Realtors.
Seems high, right? It is. The previous year, the average age was 49. Even if you only account for first-time buyers, not people buying their second or third home, the average age was a record-high 38 years old in 2024.
Of course, not all first-time buyers are waiting until they’re pushing 40 to close on a house these days. People in their early 20s can — and are — buying homes in today’s market. What’s their secret? We talked to several housing experts, plus a couple who bought their first home before they were old enough to rent a car. Here’s how to beat the trend.
Challenges for Sub-30 Homebuyers
For several years, buyers have been battling affordability on several fronts. Prices have skyrocketed since the pandemic, from a median of $317,000 in the second quarter of 2020 to $419,200 in Q4 2022. At the same time, mortgage rates have climbed from historic lows, compounding the cost.
Meanwhile, the job market has softened considerably from the Great Resignation, inflation picked up again in 2025, and the median weekly earnings of 20- to 34-year-olds lag all other age groups except for teens.
It’s a tough time to be a young person who wants to buy a home.
“You have this massive generation that would potentially be buying,” says Michael Young, a real estate agent in the greater Pittsburgh area. Gen Z buyers make up just 3% of the market, while Millennials, who are roughly between the ages of 29 and 44, make up 38%, per NAR data.
But although today’s market conditions present more than a few challenges for younger buyers, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Success Story: Homeowners at 23
Danny Hughes, 24, has owned a 1950s-era brick home on the outskirts of Pittsburgh for one year. He lives there with his new wife, Katelyn, who graduated from high school in 2021.
Danny and Katelyn are part of the 3%, two Gen Z homebuyers who are working hard to build a life that includes homeownership. Danny is a journeyman carpenter with a Pittsburgh-area union, and Katelyn recently received her bachelor’s in business management and marketing from Penn State’s Beaver branch close by. The pair credits Danny’s solid union wages with getting them on their feet, as he supported Katelyn as she finished her education.
Now that they’re both employed full-time, their mortgage is their sole remaining debt. Though Danny doesn’t love the six-and-a-half-percent rate, the pair is pragmatic about it. They plan to move in a few years’ time, perhaps building on a new plot of land, and expect to refinance if rates drop considerably.
And they definitely plan to stick close to home.
Pittsburgh is one of the most affordable major metros right now, says Young.
According to a MortgageResearch.com affordability study, the city ranked third of nearly 200 analyzed. A full house payment including taxes, insurance, and PMI would require just 27% of the dual-earner household's income.
“Owning a home is actually cheaper than renting in greater Pittsburgh,” he said. The area’s median sale price is $230,000 according to Zillow. Nearly 70% of residents can afford to buy a median-priced home there, and they need a salary of just $58,697 to do so, according to a 2025 release from the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors. With average salaries at $61,570, the market defies the nation’s overall housing-crunch trend.
How Young Buyers Succeed in This Market: 7 Tips
Danny and Katelyn’s path kept them close to home (and an affordable market), but there are still some tactics young buyers can draw on without moving to an area with cheap houses.
1. Tap Into All Forms of Education, Including Speaking With an Expert
Step one is to learn all you can about the mortgage process.
“It doesn't cost you anything to talk to an expert,” says Kelly Cort, a senior loan officer with Guild Mortgage in California. She advises young buyers to find a mortgage company that will hold their hand from the beginning, explaining each step.
“We like to spend a lot of time with [first-time buyers] before they even complete an application, just doing a pre-qualification, talking through their numbers, their income, their assets, their debt, helping them figure out what they can afford,” she said. “We explain all the closing costs line by line … our lender fees, third party, title and settlement, agent or attorney fees, city, county recording fees, transfer taxes, prepaid expenses for taxes and insurance, all of that. We explain all of that before we even take an application.”
Knowing exactly what to expect, and what additional costs they’ll have to pay, goes a long way to making young buyers more comfortable and prepared, she says.
Young also emphasizes the need to truly look at the numbers. Many buyers think that they can’t buy a home because they can’t afford it. “That's not accurate, though,” he said. “Like, you never even took the time to find out if that's true or not.” Pull your documents, run the numbers, and know for sure before you count yourself out.
“I had a couple yesterday,” said Cort. “They've got credit scores in the 570s. You only need a 580 to get an FHA loan. And he makes good money, but he's using a lot of his credit. All of his credit cards are maxed out, $3,000 limit. He's young, you know, overspending, but he makes a lot of money. All he has to do is increase his credit score by 10 points, and he's gonna buy a house in La Crosse, Wisconsin, okay? And he thought he was two to three years out,” she said.
I had a couple yesterday. They've got credit scores in the 570s. You only need a 580 to get an FHA loan...All he has to do is increase his credit score by 10 points, and he's gonna buy a house in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He thought he was two to three years out.
3. Embrace Sacrifices Big and Small
It’s especially challenging to buy a home before your career has really taken off. That makes building your savings much more of a sacrifice – and much more of a priority.
“It takes sacrificing,” Young says. Online gambling and crypto may seem like a shortcut to success, but they’re inherently risky. Patience and persistence may take longer, but they’re more reliable routes to a down payment. “You know, it's not an easy thing, per se, but it's not impossible, right?”
One sacrifice with a pretty big payoff is living at home while attending school, which is what the Hugheses chose. “I get it. People want to live the college experience, but guess what? That comes at a cost,” Danny said. “So, advice for any other homebuyer, don't do that. Save it up for something, like a house, a new car. Anything other than just partying, because you're just wasting your money.”
Smaller sacrifices count, too. Cort encourages her buyers to “celebrate those moments where they decide to spend $10 on cooking dinner at home, instead of $50 on going out. Then take that $40 they saved by not going out and put it in their savings account or pay down debt, whichever is more important in their matrix of priorities.”
4. Look for Down Payment Assistance
One area young buyers may not be familiar with is their state and local down payment assistance programs. These programs often have an income cap of 80% of the area’s median income. While that might hinder some older buyers from using the program, younger buyers may not have reached their full earning potential yet, making it easier to qualify.
Some mortgage lenders also offer incentives in the form of down payment assistance. Katelyn and Danny took advantage of Rocket Mortgage’s program, which let them put just 1% down; Rocket helped with the other 2% of their 3% down payment.
“There's some really good deals to be had,” Young says, and programs change all the time. Make sure you check in with a few different lenders to see what options are available.
“Heck yeah,” says Cort. “If there's money out there that's cheap or free, do it, right? Why wouldn't you look into that?”
5. Consider ‘Hacking’ a House
Young buyers in more expensive areas might have to be a bit more creative to buy a home. Scott Betley, perhaps better known as That Mortgage Guy on TikTok, bought his first home at age 23. He knows very well the challenges that young buyers face.
“At the time, we were able to get seller help to cover our closing costs,” he said. “So I think we spent like two or three grand out-of-pocket to buy our home, and it was a single-family home. We bought it for $246,000, and today it is priced at $450,000,” he said.
“When I was 23, I think I made 46 grand that year. And my wife made, like 22 grand,” he said. “We made it work, but there's no shot in hell we would have been able to afford it in this day and age.”
House hacking, he says, may be a creative way to solve that.
“When I was 19, 20 years old, I wish I would have purchased the property that we rented with friends for two years as a townhome,” he said. “It was like $2,200 a month in rent. And looking back on it, I could have bought that townhome and paid like $1,400 bucks a month and then used that rent from the other roommates to be able to offset the costs and put myself in a better position,” he said.
About 15% of buyers said they would consider buying with a roommate, according to a 2023 study by Realtor.com. “Altogether, roughly 83% of respondents were willing to consider buying a home and living with family or friends,” wrote Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst, on the trend.
6. Ask For a Down Payment Gift
Don’t downplay the importance of a gift when it comes to making a down payment or covering closing costs. Gifts from parents, grandparents, and others can help close the funding gap when your savings don’t quite cut it.
And while gifts must be documented and disclosed for the loan to be underwritten properly, there are other ways to accept a little help from family and friends.
Young is working with a buyer who will get a loan from his grandparents, not a lender. The buyer, who’s about 25, will be able to present the seller the offer as cash, since the proof of funds will be from Grandma’s banking institution.
“It's certainly going to help him in cutting down all the additional costs,” Young says, plus he won’t have to undergo the same qualification process as a buyer with a traditional mortgage.
7. Establish Priorities
“Buying a home is not as hard as you think when you have the right guide and the discipline to prioritize the process,” says Cort.
Perhaps the Hugheses would agree.
“Was it a pain in the butt at times? Absolutely,” Danny said. “Because sometimes, you just don't want to hear it. You're like, ‘Oh my god, please, just let me do my own thing.’”
He’s talking about fielding advice from the couple’s parents during their homebuying journey. However, the sentiment is surely a familiar one for anyone who recalls buying their first house – or the struggle of making your own way in early adulthood.
“But in the end, you know, they're just there looking out for us, and trying to make sure we went down the right path and made the right decision,” he says.
“It's all about the work you put into that,” says Katelyn. “I'm the first one in my family to graduate college, and my sister is coming up behind me.” Her best advice for young buyers? “Be the role model that you don't think that you had when you were growing up,” she said.
