By Shaina Mishkin

Is buying a house just for middle-agers? For the first time, the median age for initial home buyers has reached 40, up from 30 in 2010.

Home sales have been ailing, hit by high prices and mortgage rates. According to the National Association of Realtors' 2025 profile of home buyers and sellers, first-time buyers are becoming owners at an age when homeowners in 1997 were already trading up. "It feels like something has shifted in the housing market," says Jessica Lautz, the NAR's deputy chief economist and vice president of research. "I don't know if we can move backward [in age] unless we have a substantial change, like more-affordable housing inventory."

NAR data chronicle a stuck housing market: The share of all-cash buyers, at 26%, is tied with 2024 for highest on record, while the share of first-time buyers, at 21%, is a low. Repeat buyers put a median 23% down on their purchase, the highest since 2003. First-time buyers put down 10%, the most since 1989. And sellers' tenure in their homes grew to 11 years from 10 last year. "People just want to stay put," says Lautz.

There's a bright side. Mortgage rates are below the 6.7% one-year survey period average. Fixed 30-year rates measured by Freddie Mac are down to 6.22%, meaning those with a $400,000 loan will save more than $100 a month compared with the survey average. But, she adds, the decline is unlikely to improve demand on its own.

Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com

Last Week

Markets

Oil prices rose as OPEC+ paused plans for increasing output. The government shutdown continued, U.S. manufacturing shrank for the eighth straight month, and stocks flagged on artificial-intelligence worries, sending shares of Palantir Technologies down despite record revenue. Democrats swept state and local elections, and the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of President Trump's tariffs. On Thursday, the S&P 500 index fell 1.1% after private-sector data showed big layoffs. On the week, the Dow industrials were down 1.2%; the S&P, 1.6%; and the Nasdaq Composite, 3%.

Companies

Tesla shareholders rewarded Elon Musk with a trillion-dollar pay package. The White House said Nvidia has to reserve its most advanced chips for U.S. customers -- not Chinese -- and sealed a deal with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to cut the cost of anti-obesity drugs. The Federal Aviation Administration reduced air traffic by 10% because of the shutdown.

Deals

A Delaware judge denied Pfizer's attempt to block Novo Nordisk's Metsera bid...Shale producers SM Energy and Civitas Resources agreed to a $12.8 billion merger, including debt...Eaton acquired Boyd Thermal's liquid cooling unit for $9.5 billion... Coeur Mining bagged New Gold for $7 billion.... Starbucks sold 60% of its China unit to Boyu Capital for $4 billion... Kimberly-Clark agreed to buy Tylenol maker Kenvue for $49 billion, including debt... Charles Schwab is buying private-shares platform Forge Global for $660 million.

Next Week

Monday 11/10

Earnings reports from artificial-intelligence players will continue on Monday with "neocloud" company Coreweave reporting, followed by nuclear upstart Oklo on Tuesday and networking firm Cisco Systems on Wednesday. Noteworthy AI firms have reported mixed results in recent weeks, as some on Wall Street express concerns about surging valuations among stocks that could benefit from the AI buildout.

Tuesday 11/11

The major U.S. stock exchanges will remain open on Tuesday; bond markets will be closed for Veterans Day.

Thursday 11/12

Walt Disney will headline this week's earnings reports. Analysts polled by FactSet expect the firm to report September-quarter non-GAAP earnings of $1.05 a share on revenue of $22.76 billion. Shares have traded sideways this year.

Friday 11/13

Wall Street was slated to get key updates on inflation this week, but the shutdown has halted government data releases. The producer price index for October was slated for Friday, which would have followed the consumer price index on Thursday.

The Numbers

4

The number of months on average that regulators are taking to approve bank mergers, the lowest since 1990.

2

Estimate in percentage points of fourth-quarter U.S. growth lost if the shutdown lasts for eight weeks.

66%

The size of China's gross domestic product in 2024 compared with the U.S., down from 75% in 2021.

1.1 M

Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimate of U.S. layoffs this year so far, on par with the 2008-09 recession.

Write to Robert Teitelman at bob.teitelman@dowjones.com

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November 07, 2025 19:38 ET (00:38 GMT)

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