Margaret Skiff began considering buying her first home in 2025, at the age of 26, after her landlord refused to renew the lease on her apartment. She wasn’t intimidated by the prospect of doing it herself. Skiff says she was inspired by her aunt, who bought her own home when she was 26 years old.
“There was never a question of whether I wanted to buy a house myself,” the now 27-year-old tells CNBC Make It. “It always instilled in me that this is something that will really set me up for future success.”
Skiff, who was making about $151,000 in 2025 between her full-time customer experience job and social media content creation, bought a duplex in Portland, Maine, in April 2025, just a few months before her 27th birthday. She put a $57,500 down payment on a $575,000 property and secured a 30-year fixed mortgage with an interest rate of 6.625%.
She is relatively young as a homeowner. According to the latest available National Association of Realtors data for 2024, just 12% of buyers who purchased homes between July 2023 and June 2024 were adults between the ages of 26 and 34. But Skiff earns more than many homeowners his age. According to NAR, recent homebuyers in her age group had a median income of $108,300 in 2023.
To be able to own a home in his 20s, Skiff not only saved diligently, but also took a different path. Instead of buying a single-family home, I bought a duplex and became a landlord at 26 years old.
Skiff home buying process
Skiff says she decided it was time to consider purchasing her property after learning her landlord would not renew her lease. But finding a home within her $400,000 budget was a bit of a challenge, she says. In April 2025, when Skiff bought her home, the median cost of a single-family home in Portland was $572,500, according to Redfin data.
Skiff found several options that she could live in with a roommate or two, and she made an offer on the first single-family home she toured, but lost the bid, she says.
Skiff then turned his attention to apartment complexes.
Multifamily housing tends to be more expensive. The median price for a two-unit property in Portland was $729,000 in 2024, according to a 2025 report from Portland-based brokerage Vitalius Real Estate Group. But Skiff has found some properties in his price range where he can live alone with a tenant in another unit who helps pay the mortgage.
“For me, it was much more feasible to actually buy an apartment complex,” she says. “I can now live on my own for about the same amount as the rent I used to pay.”
Mr. Skiff’s monthly mortgage payment on his $575,000 home will be $4,000 a month. The tenants, who have lived in her home for 14 years, pay her $2,000 a month in rent. Skiff pays the difference and aims to put $200 toward the principal each month.
Social media income has increased her savings ‘exponentially’
Several key factors helped Skiff stash away enough money for a down payment. She says starting her career during the early stages of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic allowed her to accumulate savings.
“I was cooking at home. I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going out with friends, I wasn’t traveling. So I was able to really accumulate a good nest egg in the first few years after graduation,” she says.
In 2023, Skiff started a new job with a salary of $115,000. This was a significant increase from the $85,000 he was making in his previous role. She also started earning money by posting lifestyle content on social media that year. In addition, she moved back to Maine from Virginia and lived with her mother for about six months to save money on rent.
Despite his increased income, Skiff chose not to increase his spending at the same time, instead choosing to use the income he earned from his content to save money.
“It increased my savings exponentially because I didn’t touch a penny of that money until I bought the house,” she says. “I don’t think I would have been able to buy a house back then if I didn’t have the income from social media.”
Now, after owning the home for about a year, Skiff maintains enough savings to be able to cover the mortgage on his own for a few months if his downstairs neighbor moves out. But Skiff said she plans to continue renting out the unit as long as she lives in the house. Since moving, she has sublet a bedroom in her unit for a month to further increase her savings and plans to do so in the future.
Her current financial goals, she says, are to have enough equity in her home so she can stop paying private mortgage insurance (which is typically required by insurance companies when your mortgage down payment is less than 20 percent) and to “get your home to a state where it feels more complete and complete.” She is currently saving up for a complete kitchen renovation.
“That would cost a lot of money,” she says.
Want to lead with confidence and bring out the best in your team? Take CNBC’s new online course, How to Become an Exceptional Leader. Expert instructors share practical strategies to help you build trust, communicate clearly, and motivate others to do their best work. Sign up now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD to receive an initial discount of 25% off the regular course price of $127 (plus tax). Offer valid from March 16th to March 30th, 2026. Terms and conditions apply.
