Student Loans Won't Stop You From Buying a Home — But Here's What Actually Is

Student loans are back in the news, and I keep hearing some version of the same worry from people I talk to: "I can't buy a house until my student loans are paid off." I want to clear something up — that's not how it works, and believing it might be costing you years you don't need to lose.

How Lenders Actually Look at Student Debt

Lenders don't treat student loans as some special disqualifying category. What they look at is your debt-to-income ratio — your total monthly debt payments measured against your monthly income — along with your credit history and overall financial picture. Student loans are one line item in that calculation, not a wall.

And plenty of buyers are already doing this. According to the National Association of Realtors, about one-third of first-time homebuyers still carried student loan debt when they purchased, with a median balance around $30,400. These aren't buyers who paid everything off first. They ran the numbers with a lender, and it worked.

If you've been assuming you're disqualified without actually talking to anyone, it's worth finding out for sure rather than guessing.

The Real Story: Buyers Are Getting Older — But Not Necessarily Because of Loans

Here's the more interesting (and more complicated) part. According to NAR's most recent Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, the median age of a first-time buyer has climbed to 40 — an all-time high, up from just 28 back in 1992. First-time buyers now make up only 21% of the market, a historic low.

What's notably absent from that report as the explanation? Student debt. NAR's own deputy chief economist points to something bigger: "a housing market starved for affordable inventory." In other words, it's not that an entire generation suddenly can't manage a loan payment — it's that there simply aren't enough affordable homes for first-time buyers to get into.

And the cost of that delay is real. NAR's own analysis found that waiting from 30 to 40 to buy can mean losing roughly $150,000 in home equity that would have otherwise built up over that decade. The tale being told is one of two very different buyer experiences: established owners with equity making large down payments or even all-cash offers, and first-timers competing hard just to get in the door.

What This Looks Like in New Hampshire

Here at home, the average NH borrower carries about $34,860 in student debt, slightly under the national average, and roughly 192,200 Granite Staters hold some. More than half of those borrowers — 55.7% — are under 35. So yes, a lot of the buyers I work with do have student loans. It's normal, not disqualifying.

What Actually Determines If You Can Buy

If you're wondering whether now's realistic for you, the answer isn't "pay off your loans first." It's a real conversation with a lender about your actual debt-to-income ratio, your credit, your down payment options, and what's realistically available in your price range right now. Sometimes the answer is "not yet, and here's what to work on." Often, it's "you're closer than you think."

The biggest risk isn't carrying student debt into a home purchase — plenty of buyers do it successfully every year. It's assuming you can't and never checking, while the years (and the equity that comes with them) quietly pass by.

If you want a real, no-pressure read on where you stand, let's talk. I'll connect you with a lender who can run actual numbers, not assumptions.