Buying a home in your 20s isn't impossible. Just ask these New Yorkers.

Even as home prices continue to climb in the nation's largest metropolitan areas, it's still possible for buyers — even those in their 20s — to achieve the American Dream of homeownership.

Homes.com interviewed five New York metropolitan-area residents who recently purchased their homes while in their 20s. The stories they share about their homebuying experiences on Long Island, one of the most expensive housing markets in the Empire State, highlight how crucial it is to save aggressively for a down payment and how local housing agencies have funding for first-time homebuyers that often goes untapped.

Experts who watch the housing market on Long Island, a suburb of New York City spread across the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, noted how expensive the region has become for homebuyers.

"Homes on Long Island are far more expensive than they are nationally," Jared Koeck, a market analyst for CoStar who studies the Long Island region, told Homes.com. "In July, per Homes.com data, the median home price on Long Island was $749,000, almost double the national median home price of $393,000."

Koeck noted that Long Island's median income is $141,350, which means an affordable home on the island should be priced at $424,590.

"That means the gap between what the median income can afford — $424,590 — and the median home price — $749,000 — is 43%, highlighting the lack of affordability in Long Island," Koeck said.

Several people who successfully navigated that gap agreed to share their advice on the homebuying process in hopes of inspiring others in their 20s across the nation to become homeowners. To be sure, buying a home at that age is a rare feat. Only 3% of Americans who bought a home in 2024 were between the ages of 18 and 25, down from 4% in 2022, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.

Homebuyers — on Long Island and nationwide — know there is a wide range of nonprofits and government agencies that offer first-time homebuyer assistance programs, said Peter Elkowitz, CEO of the Long Island Housing Partnership, an organization that provides affordable housing assistance. Applications for those programs are typically very high, but sometimes buyers avoid going that route because they know they're up against stiff competition, Elkowitz said.

He noted that, on Long Island for example, home prices skyrocketed, and inventory dwindled after the pandemic years.

"When that happens, when the demand is so great for homes, it’s very hard for our families to compete with individuals who are offering cash on deals," Elkowitz told Homes.com. "They lose immediately. Even if they got the $50,000, they would need a lot more to still buy that house."

Buyers holding first-time grants but still losing to cash offers is a scenario playing out nationwide — particularly in markets where prices have grown aggressively in recent years, Elkowitz said.

"When you bring in subsidies, they (sellers) don’t want to wait," he said. "They want the cash deal; they want to get money upfront."

Elkowitz said it may sound like homeownership-assistance programs are futile, but he also noted that 300 people have applied to his organization so far this year — which suggests that low- to moderate-income New Yorkers still find the programs valuable.

Here are tales from young Long Islanders who achieved homeownership, including how they were able to save for the down payment.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic forced Americans indoors, Katelyn and Kevin Recupero decided they wanted to buy a home. Once the mandated lockdowns took full effect, the 27-year-old couple took shelter at Katelyn Recupero's parents' home in Selden.

The couple said they spent the following two years working multiple jobs, investing wisely and saving money for an eventual home down payment. They had amassed close to $125,000 by the time they began their homebuying journey, they said.

"We missed out on a concert or two, but we made the best of it and now we get to enjoy it," said Kevin Recupero, who works as a software engineer.

The couple took their first step toward homeownership when a seller in Ronkonkoma accepted their purchase offer, but the house burned to the ground in a fire two weeks before the closing. It took a while for the couple to recover emotionally from the setback and start shopping for another home, said Katelyn Recupero, who works as an emergency medical technician.

"We actually got discouraged," she said. "Him and I were really distraught and really sad about it, so we took a little bit of a hiatus and stopped looking for a couple of months."

The couple eventually found and purchased a three-bedroom ranch on a 0.36-acre lot in Brookhaven for $545,000, according to data on Homes.com. The Recuperos said they're proud of their accomplishment and suggest two takeaways.

"I would say to live at home as long as possible and just save as much money as you can," she said. "Set a goal and put that much away."

Joseph Saladino landed his first job at 15 working at a McDonald's in Smithtown with the goal of saving for a car. He eventually purchased a gray 2000 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, then decided he wanted to save for an even bigger purchase: a home. The 28-year-old achieved that goal in February after purchasing a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condominium in Selden for $225,000.

"I always knew that I wanted to purchase a house young," Saladino said, noting that he drew inspiration from his uncle, who bought a home in his early 20s, and a cousin, who purchased at age 22.

Between ages 16 and 27, Saladino worked part time at various jobs to save up for a home. He averaged anywhere from 25 to 30 hours a week. He worked at a pizzeria, as a cashier for Rite Aid, as a preloader for UPS and then as a driver for the shipping company. He said he eventually tallied roughly $150,000 in a savings account for his home down payment.

Saladino said there were two keys to his homebuying success. First, Saladino said he didn't spend much money on his social life, adding that he wasn't "too big into clubbing," which allowed him to keep more money in his pocket. Second, Saladino said he made a strict budget for himself and rarely swayed from it.

"I kept $300 for everything to spend and the rest of it was all going to savings," said Saladino, who now works as an electrician at Stony Brook University. "Everything that went into my savings was untouchable."

Saladino's advice to other 20-year-olds is to copy what he did — live below your means until you have saved enough for a down payment.

"Figure out how much money you need to live comfortably for a week — a minimum," he said. "Leave the rest as savings and don't touch it. Pretend that money is not yours."

De Von Williams’ path to homeownership started after he and his mother, Helen, abruptly lost the Central Islip apartment they had been living in for eight years.

Williams and his mom were put out of the rental three years ago after the landlord’s mother died, and they spent the following months couch surfing from family member to family member. Still reeling from losing their apartment, the duo determined they wanted a change and started saving money to buy a house one day.

"We had to lift each other up," Williams, 24, told Homes.com. "It was putting $200 away here, $50 there, and we were cutting back spending. It was a mix of cash in an envelope, her savings account and my savings account."

One day, in the midst of saving, Williams’ aunt handed him an application to Habitat for Humanity of Long Island. The organization’s homebuying program requires applicants like Williams to complete volunteer hours, take a first-time homebuying class, get financial education training and meet income requirement criteria.

When Williams first applied, he was working part time as a transporter for South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore, so he didn’t qualify. Williams said the hospital eventually hired him full time, which came with a big enough raise to help him become eligible for a Habitat home.

The organization eventually helped Williams and his mother purchase a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Bay Shore when Williams was 21. The mother-son duo paid $395,000, according to public records. Williams and his mother had $3,000 saved, which was enough of a down payment to get them into the home.

In a typical scenario, Habitat for Humanity organizations take applications for first-time homebuyers in their respective local markets then build a home for the person, who also has to log so many hours helping construct the property. In Williams' case, the home he purchased belonged to a former Habitat applicant who no longer could afford the mortgage.

Williams said others in their 20s can emulate what he did — they just have to "lock in" on saving money and "look into programs that are all over the place that help people try to buy homes."

Researching homebuying programs is exactly the route Alyssa Chambers took when she bought a one-bedroom condominium unit in December 2024.

Chambers, 26, had been renting a 400-square-foot apartment in Mineola for $2,175 a month, and last fall, the landlord sent word that the monthly payment would increase by 6%, she said. Chambers said she decided to leave and set out to buy a home before 2025 began.

“I was kind of stuck in a hard place," Chambers, a project manager at Morgan Stanley who also owns a mobile candle-making business based on Long Island, told Homes.com. "I was already in the mindset of I didn’t want to rent for long, but buying seemed very intimidating because of how long the process is and the amount of time I had."

Despite the time crunch, Chambers said, she spent countless hours online researching organizations and government programs that help people buy homes. She eventually came across the affordable housing nonprofit Community Development Long Island, or CDLI.

Chambers said the nonprofit’s down payment program paired her with a mortgage counselor who explained things like private mortgage insurance, how to budget for paying a mortgage and the importance of an escrow account. The program also required her to take a first-time homebuyer education course, she said. CDLI's program was also based on income requirements, which with Chamber's situation as a one-person household, meant she had to earn less than $80,000 a year.

All told, the program took three months and required a lot of paperwork, Chambers said, adding that it was all worth it.

CDLI eventually gave Chambers $32,500 toward the purchase of the $270,000 condo in Amityville. She used $13,870 of that to make renovations to the unit — including installing new carpet in the bedroom, upgrading the electrical wiring throughout the unit and tiling the bathroom floor. The rest of those funds went toward the home down payment.

Chambers now lives in the unit with her 6-year-old collie-shepherd mix named Luna.

Chambers' advice for others in their 20s is to dive into homebuying programs your community may offer and brace yourself for how long it may take to finish their requirements. Chambers said doing so, at least for her, was worth the patience.

“As a Black female, coming from a single mom and a Caribbean household, it was embedded in me to build equity,” she said. “And financially, if you’re owning a home and something happens, at least you have that. You can’t pull equity out of a rental unit.”