Most individuals acquire their first property before the age of 30

Updated: 14 October 2020

Acquiring a property for the first time is least common for 18 years olds but becomes more common with age, culminating for 26 to 28 years olds and decreasing thereafter. This can be seen by the proportion of first time buyers of the average population by age.

The proportion of first property owners is similar by sex in the period 2017-2019 but is highest for 25 to 28 years old women when broken down for sex and age. In this context it is worth mentioning that the average age of first time mothers in Iceland is around 28 years old. (Mean-, median and modal age of parents 1961-2019. px-table)

Of first time owners in 2018, 72.2% shared ownership with someone else but 27.8% had full ownership. Of those who had full ownership, 60.2% were male but 39.8% female.

Examining first time owners in 2018 by sex and education level on the time of purchase shows that 39.2% of males with basic education had full ownership but only 15.8% of females. The proportion is more even at a higher education level, with 27.7% of men with university level education having full ownership and 24.0% of females.

Statistics

First time owners 20201014 (xlsx)

Metadata

The data covers all individuals aged 18-34 years at the time of purchase registered at Register Iceland, the first registered property in the period 2017-2019 according to the property registry and taking ownership of a property which as a minimum had reached the building stage where it was ready for interiors, alone or with someone else where their ownership is either 50% or 100%.

No distinction can be made between property purchases and inheritance.

Level of education is estimated using Statistics Iceland’s educational data which is available up until the year 2018. The analysis is made using the highest level of education on the date of purchase. Level of education is classified using the ÍSMENNT2011 classification system (pdf).