Non traditional Buyers Taking Over The Market

(The housing market has shown us all sorts of interesting things about the real estate world and buying and selling patterns of consumers. )

Traditionally when we think of people buying a house, we picture a young couple starting out a new life together. But my have times changed.

According to recent statistics, fewer of the people who make up the people buying houses right now are first time buyers, and more single women are making their purchases than ever before.

Our ever changing housing market really has ceased to amaze us.

A recent article featured on MSN's Real Estate site by MarketWatch, "Who's buying houses now?" looks into the changing demographics of the buyer's market.

"Despite low mortgage interest rates, a smaller percentage of first-time homebuyers are entering the market, according to an annual profile of buyers and sellers just released by the National Association of Realtors."

"During the year ending in June, 36% of all buyers who purchased a home were first-time buyers, according to the association's annual profile of homebuyers and sellers. That's down from 40% a year ago. About 7,500 buyers and sellers were surveyed."

The reason why we are seeing less and less first time home buyers is probably because home prices shot up so much from the housing boom from about 2000-2005.

Now, although prices are going down a little bit, we are still seeing a lot of people having a lot of trouble getting into these homes that are so expensive.

This is also causing the market to slow, because if prices still stay high, nobody is going to want to buy (or can afford to buy for that matter).

But in good news about the housing market, we are seeing more single female buyers than ever before.

"The percentage of single female homebuyers, however, inched up in the survey to its highest level on record. Twenty-two percent of all homebuyers were female and on their own, up from 21% a year ago and up from 14% in 1995. In comparison, single males accounted for 9% of homebuyers, unchanged from last year."

The survey also noted that the slowing market is causing the time for a home to stay on the market to increase, which is something that everyone pretty much had an idea about.

"Reflecting the beginning of a softening market, sellers had their homes on the market for a median of six weeks, according to the report, an increase from the four-week median reported a year ago."

"'It makes some sense: We had a boom in 2005, and in this time period, we're coming to a close and beginning to stall,' Lereah said. The typical home sold for 98% of the listing price in this year's report; it sold for 99% of its listing price a year ago."

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