Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, told attendees at NAR’s 2026 Legislative Conference in Washington on Tuesday that a growing percentage of baby boomer home salespeople have never sold a property before, and most agents don’t treat them any differently than experienced sellers.
Jessica Lautz
The session, held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, was one of the conference’s most data-packed presentations on housing market trends and drew a large number of conference attendees. Lautz and NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun each presented and took questions together in a joint Q&A led by Mark Donnelly, vice chair of the NAR Housing Economic Issues and Trends Forum, and Chris Duf, COO and co-owner of Beech Real Estate Group.
first sale opportunity
Lautz began his speech by reframing how agents should think about their potential customer pool. The average length of residence for homeowners is now 11 years, she said. That number has steadily increased since the Great Recession as owners moved away from treating their homes as short-term stock transactions, he said.
“We constantly talk about first-time homebuyers,” Lautz said. “What happens to first-time sellers?”
The question wasn’t rhetorical. Lautz said 17% of young baby boomers who sold their homes this year had never sold a property before. He said the group entered the market with significant capital and genuine motivation, but little understanding of the process. And most agencies that recognize this gap are missing out on opportunities to acquire customers.
For example, Lautz explained that a relative who had owned a condominium for 20 years called with basic questions about how the sale would work and where his equity was being held.
“She literally asked me, ‘Do I need to paint?'” Lautz said.
The knowledge gap extends beyond logistics. Lautz said many in this demographic are taking advice from peers who bought homes in the 1970s and never moved, compounded by misinformation about down payments, procedures and timing, which agents are in a position to correct.
Why and where baby boomers are moving
Contrary to conventional assumptions, young baby boomers are not primarily downsizing, Lautz said. The median change in square footage for that group is zero. A more common factor, she says, is the proximity of millennial children to their families, especially grandchildren, whether or not they want to be close.
“They’re coming,” she said, and the audience responded with laughter.
For older baby boomers, Lautz said, the median square footage loss is about 200 square feet, enough to suggest that the motivation is less about space savings and more about floor plan, maintenance burdens and aging considerations.
9 more client profile agents missing
Lautz also identified nine other buyer-seller profiles that are underserved by agents, including single men, childless households, Gen Z buyers who are taking advantage of government loan programs at higher-than-expected interest rates, and “henries” (high-income earners but not yet wealthy) who she described as motivated by ambition and likely to trade within 10 years.
For single men in particular, Lautz said their homeownership rates have remained flat since the 1980s, even though single women earn about the same as single women as first-time buyers. She said the data does not provide a clear explanation, but frames the gap as an opportunity.
“We need to bring them in,” she said.
A graph from Mr. Lautz’s presentation can be viewed here.
emotions and reality
Yun, who gave a presentation before Lautz, said consumer confidence is lower now than during the foreclosure crisis of 2008-2009. It was a period marked by 8 million job losses, an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent, and a wave of distressed sales that reshaped the market for years.
Today, by contrast, the stock market is at record highs, foreclosures account for about 1 percent of transactions, and total employment is at an all-time high.
“I sometimes wonder if this business confidence index captures some of the political sentiment,” Yun said, suggesting that respondents’ views on who occupies the White House may be skewing the data.
Price, inventory, median value $1 million
Yun said home sales will remain depressed through the first half of 2026, with sales nationwide increasing by less than 1% since the beginning of the year. He attributed the slowdown to the failure of mortgage rates to move despite conditions that historically would have lowered them, such as progress towards the peace agreement mentioned the previous day. He said the 10-year Treasury, which is tied to mortgage rates, had not reacted as much as expected and was closely monitoring the gap.
However, prices have not fallen. Yun said home price growth is still on track and that under most scenarios he modeled, the national median price would reach $1 million within about 25 years. The current national median is approximately $430,000. In 1990 it was $90,000.
“For anyone who says prices could fall 30%, show me this graph,” he said, referring to the long-term upward curve.
A tale of two job markets
Yun also cited geographic disparities in job growth, noting that about half of states now have fewer people on payroll than they did a year ago, and that the Washington region has been hit hardest by federal job cuts. He said states in the Southeast and Rocky Mountain region continue to lead in job creation.
Regarding inventory, Yun said lifting the capital gains tax exemption for home sales would be one of the most direct policy tools available to bring more supply to the market, especially for older homeowners whose tax burden on sales is effectively locked in.
A chart of Mr. Yoon’s presentation can be viewed here.
Pushing back against social media noise
During the Q&A, both economists pushed back, arguing that social media discourse distorts buyer behavior. Lautz cited claims circulating online that the deal cancellation rate is between 20% and 30%, a figure she called separate from NAR data that shows cancellations occur in about 5% of ratified contracts.
Yun warned against persistent social media content predicting a 30% collapse in home prices, which he said runs counter to every supply and distressed sales indicator tracked by NAR.
“People’s decisions aren’t necessarily driven by data, they’re driven by perception,” Yun said.
Reasons for cautious optimism
Both ended on a note of cautious optimism. Lautz said the share of first-time buyers in the latest existing home sales report reached its highest level since June 2020. Yun said the recent uptick in sales activity, even without major changes in mortgage rates, could indicate buyers are getting used to the current rate environment after three years of subdued demand.
“We can only suppress certain market demands for a long period of time,” Yun said. “After three years of suppression, it will inevitably explode.”
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