Dreams slip away: first-time homebuyers face a brutal market

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As first-time buyers scramble to cobble together money for down payments and closing costs, they are competing in a market with an anemic inventory against investors and repeat homebuyers flush with cash.

In the summer of 2020, Alexandra Elmer and her husband, Matthew, began searching for their first home. They thought their wish list was realistic: four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a yard and central air conditioning.

“It feels like it’s never our time,” said Alexandra Elmer, who works in private aviation, and had to delay her 2020 wedding because of the pandemic. “I’m stuck at the starting line, and other people have been able to progress. I know we will eventually get there one day, but it’s hard to look to the future.”

The share of white buyers jumped to 88% during the survey year, representing the largest share of white buyers since 1997. The share of Black buyers fell to 3% from 6%, and Asian/Pacific Islander buyers fell to 2% from 6% from the previous survey year. Supervisors' fears over 469 Stevenson project without merit, report says The new study suggests the status quo for the property could be more damaging for the neighborhood than what the intended project could offerHaving given up on their house hunt, the Elmers are now looking to rent a nicer place in Bucks County, closer to family and a shorter commute to work for Matthew Elmer, 32. The new apartment will cost them about $1,000 more a month in rent, cutting into their ability to save.

Unsuccessful buyers are left grappling with the consequences, from small disappointments, like wondering if you’ve wasted a year of Sundays to fruitless open houses, to existential ones, like delaying when or if you have children until you know where you’ll be living. In correspondences with The New York Times, dozens of buyers expressed a profound sense of frustration about lives on hold. They feel unmoored and uncertain, stuck waiting for the next stage in life to start.

In San Francisco, Daniel Souza and his partner, James Wang, are prepared to make a down payment of around $300,000 for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, but even that has not been enough. The couple has lost out on eight bidding wars in the 15 months they’ve been shopping. “You’re competing against people who just have an insane amount of cash,” Souza said, noting that he and Wang have sometimes made an offer equal to the winning one but lost out because it was in cash.

 

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