Three in four first-time homebuyers would rather jump in and buy a home of their dreams they can retire to, rather than invest right away in a “starter’’ unit, a Bank of America homebuyer survey found.
B of A released Wednesday its inaugural Homebuyer Insights Report, based on a national sample of more than 1,000 adults age 18 and older who want to buy a home in the future, that also discovered that one in three dream-home buyers were willing to wait longer and save more to do so.
The report found three-quarters (76 percent) of experienced buyers said they sacrificed something the last time they bought a home, including travel (46 percent) or a new car (37 percent), and 32 percent said they sacrificed some of the features they would have liked in their dream home.
Additionally, buyers who have a plan in place for purchasing a home are more willing to consider a starter home than “someday” buyers who know they want to buy a home in the future, but don’t have a plan for doing so (41 percent vs. 23 percent). Seventy-seven percent of “someday” buyers would prefer to wait and move into a nicer home in the future.
Today’s aspiring homebuyers want to be selective and believe they should wait until they can afford to buy a home they’ll live in for years to come,’’ said B of A consumer-lending executive D. Steve Boland. “They’re also realistic about the need to save for a down payment.’’
Other highlights from the report:
- Aspirational and emotional factors motivate more than three-quarters (76 percent) of first-time homebuyers.
- The same number of homebuyers consider saving for or paying off a home (92 percent) as important as saving for retirement (91 percent).
- Two-thirds (66 percent) of first-time millennial homebuyers expect some kind of assistance from their parents when buying a home, ranging from financial support to assistance moving in.
- More than half (52 percent) of first-time buyers are looking for a home in the suburbs.
- Eighty-five percent of first-time homebuyers would use a tool that automatically withdrew money from their paycheck to save up for a home purchase.
