Military-connected households have claimed a steady slice of the housing market for a decade, but active-duty service members and veterans arrive at homeownership by strikingly different routes.
That’s according to the 2025 National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, which revealed that military-connected buyers represented 19 percent of all home purchasers in 2025. The data — published as the country marks Military Appreciation Month and shortly before Memorial Day — shows the two groups diverge in age, motivation, financing and how far they’re willing to move to buy.
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Active-duty buyers were younger (median age 38), more likely to be purchasing amid a job-related relocation (32 percent), and bought farther from home than any other group, with 41 percent moving more than 500 miles. Most (56 percent) purchased in suburban areas. Their median home spanned 2,000 square feet with four bedrooms, one more than the overall market median. More than six in 10 (61 percent) had children under 18 at home.
Veterans presented a different profile. At a median age of 64, they were overwhelmingly repeat buyers (88 percent) and more likely to cite proximity to friends and family, rather than job relocation, as their primary motivation (19 percent). Only 19 percent had children under 18 at home.
VA financing underpinned both groups. Sixty-nine percent of active-duty buyers and 55 percent of veterans used a VA loan in 2025. More than one-third of active-duty buyers (36 percent) and more than one-quarter of veterans (28 percent) purchased with no down payment, a benefit tracing back to the 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, which created the VA home loan program.
NAR also noted generational gaps in veteran representation. Silent Generation buyers (ages 80–100) reported the highest veteran share at 43 percent, followed by older boomers (ages 71–79) at 28 percent, figures that likely reflect the draft era. Among younger millennials (ages 27–35), the veteran share dropped to 7 percent.
