Dive Brief:

• Leading up to the release of its annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers on Oct. 31, the National Association of Realtors has pulled together a report on five trends driving real estate over the course of the last 35 years.

• The NAR’s Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers launched in 1981 and includes data covering homebuyer and seller demographics, interests and experiences. It is the longest-running report of its kind.

• The trends cited in the NAR's roundup include a post-recession drop in participation from first-time buyers; the rising popularity of the internet for home searches; tight inventory adding more urgency to the purchase experience; down payments falling and then holding steady; and median home size remaining nearly unchanged in recent years.

Dive Insight:

The trends that the NAR said have been guiding the real estate market for more than three decades remain strong today.

First-time buyers in their late 20s and early 30s still struggle to save for a down payment, qualify for a mortgage and, even then, find properties that meet their location and price criteria. As a result, buyers seeking entry-level housing are looking at markets with a low cost of living and high employment, particularly in the technology and engineering fields, Realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke told Construction Dive earlier this month. Those include Portland, ME, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Dayton, OH, according to an April report on the best cities for first-time homebuyers from Realtor.com.

When those individuals do begin the process of purchasing a home, they are more likely to consult the internet that previous generations. That’s due in large part to the expansion of the World Wide Web and the recent influx of home listing and design trend websites. In its 2015 Profile, the NAR reported that more than half of homebuyers kicked off their search online, and nine in 10 used the internet as a resource at some point during the process, with half using a mobile device.

But tight inventory is lengthening the process of finding a suitable property, particularly among buyers looking at the entry-level market, but once they find a home, they’re likely to close on it faster than previously. The NAR reported that from 1987 to 2007, buyers spent seven or eight weeks before finding a home. That jumped to 10 to 12 weeks through 2013, and is back down to 10 weeks since.

Today, slightly more than one-third of millennials own homes, according to HousingWire, the lowest rate since 1994. However, builders are betting on this share increasing in the coming years with more entry-level new construction and a surge in townhouse building.