54.5% of home purchase mortgages made in 2025 went to first-time buyers, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s National Mortgage Database. That was up from 54.2% in 2024 and 51.3% in 2019. FHFA estimates about 3,105,000 purchase mortgages were made in 2025.
The share was highest in the District of Columbia (61.7%), New York (61.2%) and North Dakota (60.5%), and lowest in Delaware (44.6%). Government-backed loans, mainly FHA, VA and USDA, lean heavily toward first-time buyers: 70.4% of them nationally, against 47.8% of conventional loans.
Why this differs from the 21% figure
The National Association of Realtors reported that first-time buyers were a record-low 21% of all home buyers in its 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Both figures can be right, because they count different things:
- Who is counted. NAR’s base is all buyers of a primary residence, including buyers who paid cash. FHFA counts only purchases made with a mortgage. NAR found that 30% of repeat buyers paid cash, so leaving cash purchases out raises the first-time share.
- What "first-time" means. FHFA flags a loan as first-time when at least one borrower has no prior mortgage in their credit file. A buyer who owned a home before without a mortgage counts as first-time to FHFA, and a loan with two borrowers counts if either one is new to mortgages. NAR asks buyers whether this is their first home purchase.
- How it is measured. NAR mailed a survey to recent buyers and received 6,103 responses from people who bought between July 2024 and June 2025. FHFA’s figure comes from a 1-in-20 sample of mortgages drawn from credit files covering calendar 2025.
The NAR figure is closer to the share of all homes bought by first-time buyers. The FHFA figure is closer to the share of new purchase mortgages going to borrowers with no mortgage history, and it is the one available by state.
By state
| State | First-time buyer share, 2025 | 2024 | 2019 | Conventional loans, 2025 | Government-backed loans, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District of Columbia | 61.7% | 56.7% | 57.8% | 59.9% | 75.0% |
| New York | 61.2% | 62.5% | 60.4% | 58.8% | 78.2% |
| North Dakota | 60.5% | 55.4% | 54.5% | 56.4% | 70.2% |
| New Jersey | 59.9% | 58.7% | 58.8% | 55.5% | 80.1% |
| Louisiana | 59.5% | 60.6% | 55.4% | 47.8% | 73.5% |
| Mississippi | 58.9% | 59.8% | 58.5% | 47.1% | 70.8% |
| Connecticut | 58.6% | 58.2% | 57.2% | 56.0% | 73.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 58.2% | 58.0% | 55.5% | 53.5% | 75.5% |
| Kentucky | 57.9% | 56.1% | 51.9% | 52.8% | 68.9% |
| West Virginia | 57.9% | 58.7% | 53.6% | 50.2% | 70.5% |
| Illinois | 57.5% | 57.9% | 55.3% | 54.0% | 73.6% |
| Texas | 56.5% | 55.3% | 52.7% | 45.3% | 72.3% |
| Ohio | 56.3% | 57.2% | 52.6% | 51.2% | 71.0% |
| Indiana | 56.2% | 56.2% | 52.3% | 49.1% | 73.2% |
| California | 56.0% | 57.4% | 53.6% | 49.4% | 78.4% |
| Michigan | 56.0% | 55.7% | 54.8% | 52.5% | 69.5% |
| Iowa | 55.9% | 54.2% | 50.9% | 52.8% | 68.1% |
| Massachusetts | 55.9% | 58.3% | 54.8% | 53.1% | 74.9% |
| New Mexico | 55.8% | 56.3% | 51.7% | 49.5% | 66.9% |
| Missouri | 55.5% | 51.7% | 49.6% | 48.8% | 71.0% |
| Minnesota | 54.4% | 55.0% | 51.0% | 51.0% | 71.1% |
| Alabama | 54.1% | 53.6% | 49.4% | 45.2% | 64.7% |
| Maryland | 54.1% | 54.8% | 53.8% | 48.3% | 67.8% |
| Hawaii | 54.0% | 48.1% | 52.7% | 50.2% | 62.0% |
| Oklahoma | 53.9% | 53.9% | 49.3% | 43.1% | 68.9% |
| Washington | 53.9% | 53.7% | 50.5% | 48.8% | 71.0% |
| Wyoming | 53.9% | 45.0% | 45.9% | 37.4% | 76.7% |
| Rhode Island | 53.7% | 59.9% | 53.6% | 46.9% | 72.7% |
| Georgia | 53.6% | 52.8% | 50.1% | 44.4% | 68.1% |
| Kansas | 53.6% | 53.9% | 52.3% | 47.8% | 69.5% |
| Utah | 53.1% | 50.8% | 48.1% | 42.9% | 75.3% |
| Arkansas | 52.1% | 52.0% | 50.0% | 41.4% | 68.2% |
| Florida | 52.0% | 49.8% | 47.4% | 41.9% | 69.6% |
| Virginia | 52.0% | 51.2% | 51.0% | 45.9% | 62.9% |
| Nevada | 51.9% | 50.6% | 48.5% | 40.8% | 72.0% |
| Maine | 51.7% | 49.2% | 47.8% | 43.7% | 75.7% |
| Wisconsin | 51.6% | 52.9% | 49.9% | 48.6% | 69.4% |
| Colorado | 51.1% | 48.7% | 44.2% | 43.7% | 68.2% |
| Oregon | 50.9% | 51.9% | 46.7% | 43.4% | 74.5% |
| Alaska | 50.8% | 47.1% | 51.2% | 46.6% | 57.2% |
| Tennessee | 50.6% | 49.3% | 46.5% | 42.1% | 66.7% |
| Arizona | 50.1% | 49.9% | 43.5% | 37.2% | 71.1% |
| Vermont | 50.0% | 53.3% | 48.9% | 46.9% | 71.9% |
| Nebraska | 49.6% | 53.1% | 51.3% | 46.3% | 60.0% |
| South Dakota | 49.5% | 48.9% | 51.0% | 43.7% | 64.5% |
| North Carolina | 49.4% | 49.6% | 48.2% | 42.4% | 64.6% |
| South Carolina | 49.1% | 49.0% | 44.9% | 39.2% | 63.6% |
| Montana | 48.4% | 46.4% | 40.3% | 40.8% | 68.4% |
| New Hampshire | 47.8% | 51.5% | 47.0% | 44.3% | 64.8% |
| Idaho | 47.6% | 47.8% | 40.4% | 38.5% | 67.2% |
| Delaware | 44.6% | 46.5% | 45.8% | 33.9% | 72.4% |
50 states and D.C., sorted by the 2025 share across all purchase mortgages. Shares are FHFA’s, weighted by loan count. The CSV adds FHFA’s estimate of purchase originations in thousands.
Source
Federal Housing Finance Agency, National Mortgage Database aggregate statistics, new mortgage statistics, annual, states and national (series PCT_FTHB and TOT_ORIG), downloaded October 27, 2026. U.S. government data in the public domain. National Association of Realtors, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, released November 4, 2025. Our table is available under CC BY 4.0. Credit "My Credit Guide (mycreditguide.org)".
Steven Reynolds, "First-Time Home Buyers by State," My Credit Guide, October 27, 2026, https://mycreditguide.org/data/first-time-home-buyers-by-state/.