Boomers won’t part with their homes, and that’s a problem for young families
Boomers won’t part with their homes, and that’s a problem for young families
Buying a family-sized home with three or more bedrooms used to be manageable for young people with children. But with home prices climbing faster than wages, mortgage rates still close to 23-year highs and a shortage of homes nationwide, many Millennials with kids can’t afford it. And Gen Z adults w...
Buying a family-sized home with three or more bedrooms used to be manageable for young people with children. But with home prices climbing faster than wages, mortgage rates still close to 23-year highs and a shortage of homes nationwide, many Millennials with kids can’t afford it. And Gen Z adults with kids? Even harder.
Meanwhile, Baby Boomers are staying in their larger homes for longer, preferring to age in place and stay active in a neighborhood that’s familiar to them. And even if they sold, where would they go? There is a shortage of smaller homes in those neighborhoods.
As a result, empty-nest Baby Boomers own 28% of large homes — and Milliennials with kids own just 14%, according to a Redfin analysis released Tuesday. Gen Z families own just 0.3% of homes with three bedrooms or more.
This post is a load of horse shit.
The reason housing prices are out of control is because investment firms are gobbling them up with cash, yet you’re blaming it on boomers staying in their homes.
Boomers are staying in their homes BECAUSE the housing market is out of control. Stop blaming older people and start blaming Wall Street.
Boomers shouldn't have to part with their homes. They, too, need a place to live.
The issue is not Boomers owning the house they live in and refusing to leave it (even if it might be larger than they require) The issue is in particularly large corporations owning thousands of properties and taking them away from the housing market.
Well gee it's almost like after decades of being told they should treat houses as investments to be collected instead of sold, they listened.
The problem isn't boomers. It's people buying more than they need during a crisis.
Don't let them make you forget that 44 percent of homes were bought by corporations in 2023. In cash, above asking, no inspection.
I love this community, seeing through the generational conflict bullshit.
Makes me wonder if the corporate propaganda networks are going to be in trouble because this seems to be one actual generational trend: younger generations don't seem to trust the media like older ones did.
I've seen CNN as basically Fox News but with a different target audience for over a decade now. They can't say as much stupid shit because that audience isn't as dumb as Fox's, but it's pushing the same divide and conquer shit.
I’m shocked! Is this yet another article that tries to blame the average American for the housing market problems instead of residential real estate “investors” buying up all the properties to rent or use as airbnbs?
Or what about the foreign investors who are buying up land and homes with what seems to be zero oversight?
But obviously it’s the boomers who just want to live in the house they bought.
Boomers should have housing. And we shouldn’t ignore the idiosyncratic attachments that people develop to their homes. Saying “the boomers need to move so I can have a home” is no different than saying “that people group needs to move so my people group has living space.”
We can all have homes. The problem is that the corporations are incentivized to buy residential property and rent it to us. Fuck them.
We just need more of them, not some random group to get fucked out of their housing. Bleed the 1%
Ok so we’re trying to blame boomers now for Airbnb now? Cuz there’s more than enough NEW housing that was turned into Airbnb by gobbling firms.
Brian Joseph Chesky (born August 29, 1981) is an American businessman and industrial designer and the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. Chesky is the 249th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $8.6 billion, mostly due to his ownership of 76 million shares of Airbnb.
Where did Brian Chesky start Airbnb?
San Francisco Airbnb. In October 2007, the Industrial Designers Society of America was hosting a conference in San Francisco and all hotel rooms were booked. The pair could not afford rent for the month and decided to rent their apartment for money.
You can safely leave the boomers out of that conversation for how the unchecked system was actually broken by a millennial.
That’s not the problem.
Why should they have to move? What is this unwritten law that says after 30 years you're required to sell your family home to someone younger? I get that the baby boomer generation has fucked up a lot, but I don't see why anyone should have to silently pack their belongings and shuffle off to a nursing home just because Junior wants his first big boy house...
Nice to gloss over the fact that home mortgage rates were double what they are now when they were buying them. My boomer parents’ rate was 12% for the majority of their 30-year mortgage (and that was considered great!). We’re trying to get them to move out of their 6 bedroom home I grew up in but they have deep roots where they are and aren’t interested in moving anytime soon.
It's extra fucked in California because the boomers passed a law to set property taxes at the time of purchase and only allow for small increases over the years. Rising home prices don't have corresponding rising taxes so the old farts are never priced out of their huge empty houses.
I wrote out a very angry reply, but as often happens, as I cooled down and reflected, it was 100% the result of this enormously clickbait title, not the article itself.
The article itself DOES mention the mortgage rates, and it DOES acknowledge that Boomers might be willing to move out (in direct contradiction to its own title) but cannot bc of a shortage of affordable smaller homes, the same as everyone else.
In short, Boomers are trapped too - again it's not that they "won't" so much as they "can't" - even if sitting better in a home that they (hopefully) own rather than having to rent.
There is simply no excuse for such a rage-baiting, purposefully combative title.:-( Maybe we need to start using AI to generate new titles to replace those profit-mongering ones? :-)
They can’t sell. Their adult children have to live with them since they can’t afford anything else.
Yeah, old people! Get out of your houses! Die in the street for everyone else's benefit!
Just like how you were supposed to die to vote for Trump in the Iowa caucus and die from COVID to help the economy.
The point is, this is entirely your fault and we hate you and go die. In a hole preferably, so we don't have to hear you moan about needing social security and medicare.
Sincerely,
Republicans
(P.S. Vote for us before you die! Kthx.)
And where is it suggested boomers should live? My MIL has a paid-for home, but is now in assisted living. It costs 6K a month, which is eating through her savings at a shocking rate, even though we're paying a portion of her AL rent.
If she had the ability to stay home, you better believe she would, because she can't afford to part with her home.
Corporations and foreign countries are buying up real estate like crazy and OP wants to blame retired people? STFU.
My 90 year old grandmother refuses to go to a nursing home (and honestly I can’t blame her) and actually just blew a ton of money getting her home remodeled. She has no plans to leave until she passes away, at which point the house will go to my father who has plans to sell it.
Meanwhile, my wife and I barely make the median income amount and, at 36, we’re never going to be able to afford a home.
I bought my first house in 2010, during the last dip in the housing market. Sold every asset I could for the down payment and end up with a mortgage payment I could afford. The value of the home has since increased 3x from when I bought it; I couldn't afford to buy the place today, let alone move someplace else. My major source of frustration has been property taxes, which now cost 1.5x more than my mortgage payment. I'm not entirely certain I'll be able to STAY in this place if they keep going up 20%/year like they have been.
Not sure how common this is nationally, but around here it's also common for the older generation to maintain two properties a "home" in the city/metro area near their kids or grandkids and a "cabin" which is literally a second home somewhere else.
I think it'd be great to give up the home in the metro and downsize to a condo or apartment, but that's just me.
Baby Boomers, Millenials, amd Gen Z account for.. 42% of homes.
Classic Gen X erasure aside... I have doubt Gen X owns the remaining 58% today. The article does mention 18% of gen X owned 10 years ago. And I am doubtful the Silent Generation is still clinging to their numbers.
And so under the most charitable interpretation: that is still a 20% gap of ownership by what I can only assume is a business enterprise.
They trying to distract us. I aint looking at the single home owning boomers, its landlords and corporate real estate companies hoarding homes.
Hmm. In my opinion it's preferable if the boomers keep their houses so their children can inherit the value.
Where I live, it's a bigger issue that boomers sell their houses too cheap to companies that demolish the house to build apartments. The boomers then waste the money on renting overpriced apartments for the rest of their life.
I get that it's difficult to maintain a house as you grow older and these houses are usually not well maintained, but they're really just pissing their value away.
But it's not a problem for boomers who like having all the stuff and not sharing, so why change it?
What do you mean by "other people"?
Probably because of this young people have stopped respecting boomers. Last week a guy in his 20's assaulted a boomer at our local grocery shop.
Eventually they will
Gee, boomers are being selfish! Who would have guessed?
This isn’t the ‘Boomers’ fault. It’s large corporate property portfolios vacuuming up houses and land to take in the lovely extortion… uh…‘rent’ monies.