The typical American first-time buyer is now 40, the oldest since the Realtors started asking in 1981, when the same buyer was 29. Read as patience, it is really a closing door: the first-time share of the market fell to a record-low 21 percent, and the ones still getting in earned $94,400 against a national median of $83,730, put down 10 percent, and more than a fifth leaned on a gift or loan from family to do it. Treat the 40 loosely, though. Working from loan-level records, analysts at Cato and AEI put the typical first-time buyer nearer 33. The age rose, but far less than one headline suggests. What is not in dispute is the direction: a milestone that used to mark the start of adult life now arrives, for the shrinking group that reaches it, near the middle.