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.
Exactly. Where will they move to? Most older people want to stay in the neighborhood that they grew up in. It’s not like an 80 year old will be selling their house in suburban Long Island to find a cheap room in rural Alaska.
And it’s not like new houses haven’t been built since grandpa bought his house.
And it’s not like there isn’t people benefitting now on a housing shortage caused by Airbnb buying up all that new housing.
Blaming boomers for corrupt Airbnb for this is a desperate reach.
This point is literally in the article, almost word for word, and it’s being upvoted as a defense of them against this article that’s allegedly trying to blame them.
Fucking hell, it never ceases to amaze me that people will be so up in arms against something they didn’t even bother to read.
Also blame shit like Silicon Valley for coming up with these new things like Airbnb and not putting it through a proper checkpoint on how it impacts the world. Like surely that could have had some foresight on the housing shortage it was going to cost the moment people got dollar signs in their eyes.
As usual, no mention of Gen X.
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Bok bok. Please continue to ignore us.
Whatever.
meh
Sadly, many can’t move. Retirement homes/communities are sometimes more expensive. Smaller homes cost more or have HOA fees they can’t make work. Most all options have taxes they also can’t make work.
I wish it were as easy as telling them to move but it’s not.
A few years ago my grandparents were in a memory care facility as their health declined. It cost them $18,000 a month to stay there. Adjusting for inflation that’s like $22,000 a month.
memory care facility
I’m assuming a large part of that was the full time nursing care to keep Gran’s from wandering off into the street looking for Pinkie, their childhood cat in the middle of rush hour (as well as dealing with… you know… making sure they get meds and, eating right, and wiping their ass after, they, uh, ate right.)
Not really, surprisingly. They mostly only needed basic assisted living stuff (meals were provided). Both needed help with their medications, but my grandpa was mostly independent, only requiring help putting on his shoes and taking showers. My grandma was a psycho wannabe escape artist though. But she didn’t really need someone to watch her all the time. The building was intentionally designed confusingly to prevent escapes.
Smaller homes cost more or have HOA fees they can’t make work. Most all options have taxes they also can’t make work.
It’s pretty insane that America has virtually no supply of inexpensive small homes. It’s all about the 2500+ sq-ft behemoths that cost $400,000+.
Even though it’s a “worse” deal per sqft I think the market for sub $200,000 homes in the 500-750 sq-ft range would be absolutely booming if it existed.
I know a real estate developer type. (kinda a moron, actually, but he’s got a lot of experience in building expensive places to live.)
A comment he made to me once was “Nobody builds low-income housing. a mid-rise luxury condo will only cost a bit more to build than low income apartments, but you make a shitload more”
yeah, he was also kind of an asshole.
A comment he made to me once was “Nobody builds low-income housing. a mid-rise luxury condo will only cost a bit more to build than low income apartments, but you make a shitload more”
Yeah, I completely believe it.
Space-efficient middle housing for the poor and lower middle-class is not something we can rely on private companies to do in America. It’s something that is going to have to take government intervention.
The apartment complex I was in took up as much land as around 5-7 average sized new construction homes yet it housed
4246(I actually remember two of the buildings having 8 apartments each) apartments. It was also in a part of the country where a car was basically required. There was space for every apartment to have at least 1 car and have space to spare. Realistically probably about 1.5 cars per apartment could fit parked in the complex.There was space for every apartment to have at least 1 car and have space to spare. Realistically probably about 1.5 cars per apartment could fit parked in the complex.
Parking minimums are utter madness, and a big part of the issue in the US. Although I understand that in some states/cities where this isn’t required, developers still overbuild the parking just out of the assumption that buyers/renters will prefer it.
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This is a fucking bullshit article. Between Airbnb and filthy scum investment companies buying up homes to rent, actual owners are nowhere near the biggest problem
Stop upvoting shit like this. CNN = Clearly Not News
In support of your argument.
Report: 44% of all Single-Family Home Purchases were from Private Investors in 2023
edit: see corrections below
Fucking hell that’s shocking
It’s not even close to true. Here’s an article about it
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 agree with most of what you said but that 44% number is wildly wrong. Article about it
Also, anecdotally, I’ve gone through a couple of houses in hot markets the last 5 years (had to move for work) as both buyer and seller. The vast majority of people looking weren’t corporate or institutions. Most were couples looking for a place to live. Cash buyers above asking are a real thing though and they suuuuuuuck for the poors like myself.Your right, I shouldn’t take my news from Medium headlines. So here’s the actual study results from Business Insider.
However the Medium article wasn’t wrong. When you have reporting from NYT to CNBC agreeing, and a glorified industry blog splitting hairs as a defense then it’s pretty clear what the situation is.
“ When combining closings between both larger, private equity and smaller, independent operations, investors accounted for 44% of the purchases of flips during the third quarter”
That figure is talking about only flipped (i.e. remodeled) houses bought in a specific quarter, October 2022. Most people (myself included) can’t afford freshly remodeled homes and brand new cars.
That figure also lumps small landlords together with big investors which really isn’t the same thing in my opinion but some people around here think that all landlords are evil so that’s somewhat subjective I guess.Institutional investors “purchased 25% of the homes flipped” “as soaring mortgage rates push traditional buyers to the sidelines,”
That still sucks but it’s not 44% of all homes being bought by big corporations throughout 2023.
Here’s a recent Business Insider article that goes in depth on who’s been buying houses over time
Idgaf if they own 10 houses or 10,000. They’re hoarding houses and people are being hurt by it. It needs to stop.
So no rental properties at all? You either buy or you’re homeless? That doesn’t sound great to me. Owning is a lot of work, risk and commitment. If anything goes wrong, you better have thousands of dollars ready to dump into getting your roof fixed or your plumbing fixed or whatever. If you decide you want to go to a different school or accept a better job offer in another city, you’re probably gonna lose tens of thousands of dollars to the real estate agents when you sell. It’s not the right choice for a lot of people.
I’ve lived mostly in houses owned by landlords with less than ten properties and they were all pretty cool for the most part. Way better landlords than apartment complexes or property management companies. The biggest annoyance was surprise visits by them early on the weekend to plant flowers/bushes in the front yard, water the tree, replace edging, typical homeowner crap like that. I guess worse than that, a couple of times their situation changed and they decided to move back into the house, so they didn’t renew our lease and we had to move out. That kinda sucked but it’s their house, if they want to live in it and your lease is up, that’s the way contracts go.
All that said, property management companies and large landlords can get fucked. Regardless of housing cost, they’ve always been scumbags to deal with.
We could do market rate non profit apartment buildings. But yeah other than that it needs to go die in a fire. We are living in a crisis of our own making.
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.
CNN got bought by some other Republican asshole, I forget the name. They are basically FOX News now without actually using the N word.
I like Scripps News
Article makes it sound like an old people problem. It isn’t. It’s a systemic one. People can’t afford houses.
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Not that weird. The corporate media has been pushing this narrative for a while. They realize that younger people don’t respond to the old racism or anti-lgbtq. But “evil old boomers are stealing your house/money/whatever” seems to work like a charm. It’s just another distraction.
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. There is a shortage of smaller homes in those neighborhoods.
The article mentions both cost and availability as factors.
my older in-laws are hoarding all the wealth after grandmother passed and they finagled their way into the inheritance they were not in and inherited the vehicles as well
now we have ask them for anything if we get in a bad way and my side of the family did something similar
older people do be hoarding
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.
How bout, now hear me out, we build more and better housing. I’m not throwing Grandma and Grandpa to the curb I’m overthrowing Capitalism first
At least where I live, new housing costs exceed the value of the built building, so new costruction isn’t viable.
That’s not the problem.
I’m all for blaming boomers, but what about the corporations and foreign entities buying up single family homes?
but what about the corporations and foreign entities buying up single family homes?
Fuck them too. Well. lets fuck them first, and then see if that helps. we can hold boomers in the wings.
Actually, who do you think sits on the boards of those hedge funds (blackrock comes to mind,)? it ain’t gen z. or millenials. So, yeah. we can still blame boomers… :)
Boomers are not the enemy. Corporations are.
Who is the main age group fighting against progressive policy of action against corporations? Boomers
They have got you chasing a red herring by being obsessed with the age of people instead of their beliefs. There are reactionary fascists in all age groups, new young generations of fascists are being hatched right as we speak. It isn’t the age of the individual which perpetuates it, there are far more wide reaching factors involved.
Pretty much everyone on both sides. Leftists hate action on housing because developers can make some profit providing housing for people
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.
Airbnb impact pales in comparison to SFR and B2R. And guess what generation is driving those industries.
Go away troll.
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…
I agree, but it sure would be nice if boomers did something good for once.
They will eventually (though only once). It’s one of two certainties in life and the other is taxes.
Nobody expects anyone to give up their own home.
The article wants you to tell grandma to get the fuck out.
I’ll just take those “journalists’” houses instead.
