Buying a home for the first time? Avoid these mistakes

What’s more, 56 percent of first-time buyers offered more than the asking price before successfully sealing a deal. In comparison, just 35 percent of other homebuyers put up more than the asking price.

In the end, more first-time buyers — 34 percent — were left feeling financially insecure after their purchase versus 17 percent of buyers who had done it before. First-time buyers are typically about 30 to 36 years old, according to NerdWallet. In 2017, there were 2.07 million first-time homebuyers, a 7 percent increase from the previous year, according to Genworth Mortgage Insurance.

“It shows that things are tough out there for first-time homebuyers,” Holden Lewis, home expert at NerdWallet, said of the survey results.

First-time buyers might be more prone to making mistakes such as low-balling offers, Lewis said. That hurts them, particularly when there’s less inventory on the market for entry-level priced homes.

“There’s just more competition for those homes,” Lewis said. “There’s not a whole lot of them out there in a lot of markets, and there’s a lot of buyers who are competing for those homes.”