There's a new wrinkle in the housing affordability crisis: American homebuyers are now older than ever. High prices and just-as-high mortgage rates are combining to "push homeownership out of reach for many," said Axios. A new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reveals that the median age for first-time homebuyers is now 38. That's up from 35 last year, and a "new high in data going back to 1981." First-time buyers make up just 24% of the market, a "record low," said Axios. "Becoming a homeowner has never felt harder."

The average age of all homebuyers — first-timers and repeaters — has risen to 56, up from 49 last July, said CNBC. A quarter of first-time buyers now need a gift or loan from a family member or friend in order to make a down payment.

First-time buyers 'frequently sidelined'
Buyers need a "higher income to be able to get into homeownership," Brandi Snowden, of NAR, said to Realtor.com. The median selling price of a home is $435,000, and successful buyers have a median income of $108,800, up $1,800 from last year. Nearly a quarter of first-time buyers reported living with friends or family prior to the purchase, allowing them to "save for a longer amount of time," said Snowden.

The shortage of young people buying homes "helps explain the housing market's continuing slump," Shaina Mishkin said at Barron's. As prices rise, potential first-time buyers are "frequently sidelined by other costs" like student loans and rent. The typical down payment for first-timers is now 9%, the "highest since 1997."

Affordability affects presidential vote
There are political consequences to these changes. Thirty-eight percent of early voters in the presidential election reported that housing affordability "influenced their pick for president," said HousingWire. A third of respondents to an Ipsos survey said they believed mortgage rates would fall in a Kamala Harris presidency, while a quarter said the same about Donald Trump. But many of the policies that affect affordability are enacted at the local level. That's why "housing affordability could play a larger role in local elections."

Not so long ago a "typical first-time homebuyer was in their late 20s," said CNN. That's no longer the case. The Americans who can enter the housing market these days, said Jessica Lautz of NAR, are "really a select few." 

Social media is "doing harm to our kids, and I'm calling time on it," said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today, announcing proposals for world-first legislation banning children under 16 from social media. His ban would not exempt children under 16 already on social media, even if they have parental consent, as concerns grow over harmful or dangerous content and adverse effects on youth mental health. His government will introduce the legislation by the end of the year, with the onus on tech companies to enforce an eventual ban. 

'Double the risk of depression and anxiety' 
Australia's young people are among the most connected in the world, with about 97% using social media across an average of four platforms. Yet more than half of Australians feel lonely every week, according to a survey by Medibank's Loneliness Population Index. Among lonely 16- to 24-year-olds, social media was the "top answer" for why, said the Herald Sun. 

It's "increasingly clear that the more time youth spend online, the higher the risk of mental health problems," said The Associated Press. Studies suggest that kids who use social media for more than three hours a day face "double the risk of depression and anxiety." 

'Opposite of what we would recommend' 
Most participants of a round table by the American Psychological Association on the subject agreed that banning children was "not an effective solution." More than 140 experts in technology and child welfare wrote to Albanese criticizing the restriction as "too blunt an instrument." 

Enforcing it will be "extremely challenging," said Lisa M. Given, a professor of information sciences at RMIT University in Melbourne, at The Conversation. Reviewing existing accounts to verify age is a "technological nightmare." The ban won't do anything to "force social media companies to eliminate harmful content." 

No such age restrictions have succeeded anywhere in the world, because young people can evade them with virtual private networks (VPNs) that hide location and information. But experts warn a ban could cut off refugee, LGBTQ+ and other minority youths from essential "social support" and exacerbate mental health issues. The ban is "pretty much the opposite of what we would recommend," Amelia Johns, a professor of digital media at the University of Technology in Sydney, said to Reuters.