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.
They trying to distract us. I aint looking at the single home owning boomers, its landlords and corporate real estate companies hoarding homes.
Absolutely, it isn’t those boomer parents living in a house for 40 years that are driving up the costs. It’s corporations and landlords buying houses as investments so that they can rent them out while the market skyrockets.
Yeah this needs more of an upvote, take a THIS
Mostly, you’re right, IMO. But these same people will vote against affordable housing being built near them… “Not in my backyard!”
Right? Modern medicine is keeping people alive longer, and I’m not going to judge someone for wanting to keep the home they’ve probably lived in for many years.
I don’t rent, but from what I read it’s out of control, and corporations buying up homes, putting in the bare minimum to fix up (read: lazy/cheap contractors) and asking way more than it’s worth. Now, of course you don’t have to pay it, but if everyone is asking overprice, what are people suppose to do?
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.
Idgaf about the boomers who want to grow old in the homes they bought. Thats their right as a homeowner. I care about the airbnbs, unskilled flippers, and the corps trying to turn America into a “renters market”
Exactly. My parents are boomers and own one house. But my sister and her son live with them, so they are utilizing their space.
It’s the corporations that own several rentals, complexes, etc that drive rent and house prices up. Can’t compete with their practices .
I read the disaster insurance in some states are so outrageous or even unobtainable, so private citizens can’t even get a mortgage (no insurance, no loan) anymore-assuming they could afford one to begin with. The only ones who can afford to outright buy in some places are corporations and foreign interests. It’s fucking trash.
There are so many “boomer bad”, “genx vs millenniall”, “zoomers are lazy” stories lately. Seems like they got tired of just pitting races against each other and moved onto fake generational conflict. This way we don’t notice what the billionaires are doing to all of us. Meanwhile the 5 richest billionaires doubled their net worth.
GenX here. I’m shocked someone remembered us. We’re not even mentioned in the synopsis
This. it’s ok to own a home. It’s ok to rent a home. people need places to live.
What’s not ok is being a slumlord.
yeah kinda feels like the corporations trying to push a bogeyman to distract us.
No, just a writer with nothing to write about. This article is seriously summed up as “omg people are choosing to live in the homes they bought, wtf??!”
These fuckers too - price hiking people out of rentals is a policy. The encourage evictions instead of negotiation. it’s fucked.
As usual, no mention of Gen X.
the ninja generation
listen close, theyre around here somewhere…
You know, I hate the joke, but it seems to have a special place in their heart…
How do you know someone is Gen X? Well, you don’t really care, but they’ll tell you anyways.
My dad was trying to tell me he was a millennial the other day. I tell him “no, you’re not”, he says he’s definitely too young to be a boomer and lists off the boomer birth range.
I just stared at him for a second, before reminding him Gen X exists and he’s part of it
Even Gen X forgets there’s a Gen X
They are all vegan?
Found the person who enjoys unoriginal jokes.
Says that very person
Why? They got their house when they were still affordable and there wasn’t a shortage. During their time, they could negotiate prices down. They’re not the ones being affected by the boomers.
They’re not the ones being affected by the boomers.
My dude, they’ve been riding us our whole lives
deleted by creator
I don’t think they’re blaming them, just explaining why they aren’t mentioned in this scenario
Ooops, my bad. Thank you!
No problem. I’m definitely not blaming them. They’re just a bit lucky to have been there at the right time.
Otherwise, their demography didn’t have the voting power the boomers had. So it didn’t matter what they wanted, they just took whatever they could before it all went to shit.
Seriously, plenty of us missed the window
At this point I think gen x is getting conflated with boomers because what people often mean when they say “boomer” is old people. And let’s face it, you Xers aren’t exactly spring chickens.
Bok bok. Please continue to ignore us.
They were mentioned at least once
Gen Xers were 42 to 57
And then… crickets.
We are definitely the forgotten generation!
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.
Buyers and renters definitely prefer parking. I wouldn’t buy or rent a place that didn’t have parking. I can’t solve the transportation infrastructure problem myself so until there is actually meaningful transit, I need my car, and I need some place to park it.
Yes, but do you need multiple parking spaces for every tenant (who might not have a car), especially given most parking lots are massively underutilized? Even more so when you look at the situation across a neighbourhood or a city where there are likely spaces nearby that could be used.
Parking minimums are utter madness, and a big part of the issue in the US.
True.
However I was simple talking about an apartment complex in a relatively rural part of the country without access to public transit. There were about 55-60 parking spaces for 7 buildings of 46 apartments.
Also why car companies don’t build inexpensive cars.
Here in the UK it’s generally the same, but also in a way worse.
Developers are “required” to build a percentage of homes that are “affordable”. I put both of these in quotes because, yeah. They dodge it over and over and somehow are still granted permission for their next project.
A lot of the big developments in minneapolis are supposed to have a certain percentage of the spaces be “affordable”, but, if you happen to be one of the largest real estate developers and in the world… and if you happen to own several lobbyists… waivers exist.
He may have been an asshole but that statement isn’t what made him one. He’s just working with reality.
Making luxury stuff makes more money for him and his whole team. Simple stuff.
If we as society want change, we need to work with the vehicle we have to do so: government.
Set quotas. Offer subsidies to builders. Specify zoning to require x% of undeveloped land earmarked for building to be higher density or lower cost. (Or both.)
Making luxury stuff makes more money for him and his whole team. Simple stuff.
The context of that conversation was in a looming housing crisis. This was before the Hiawatha encampment made it much more visible.
In any case I was and am active in the city level politics and I was looking for a rough estimate to price out literally just building new apartments for everyone that needed a home.
Basically he was saying “but nobody does that,” and he’s right. And I wouldn’t expect him to. But, just for the record, from what I found at the time chatting up a few developers…
… it would have cost less than the cities-then budget for dealing with the housing crisis. But people want to be assholes for some reason.
Missing middle housing would be an even better solution (duplexes, quadraplexes, row houses, and small apartment buildings). Single family houses are an incredibly inefficient use of space and naturally cause greater sprawl, which means more cars and more roads (and consequently more emissions).
Single family houses are an incredibly inefficient use of space and naturally cause greater sprawl, which means more cars and more roads (and consequently more emissions).
Trust me, I completely agree. I just have very low expectations of the American market and the American consumer. I figured that lots half as wide and half as deep could fit 4 times the number of “tiny” homes in the same area and it might entice many people who want a single family home to something more land efficient rather than a 2500sq-ft place.
I used to live in an apartment complex that had a number of buildings and each building had 6 apartments. I really liked it. One of the best places I ever lived, but unfortunately the management company decided that they need to constantly raise the rent. They ended up forcing a lot of people out.
Also, even if it were that easy, it’s kind of hard to expect someone to leave their home for the greater good. Looking at it from the perspective of society at large it makes logical sense and frames the empty nester as selfish, but when it comes down to the individuals it’s kind of hard to blame them, it’s their home and they love it and they chose it, why should they choose something else?
In general, large scale, difficult, costly changes done for social good are hard to get off the ground when they rely on large numbers of people choosing to make them and solely for the social good without any other natural motivations.
Really tired of big news companies blaming individuals for industries ruined by the greedy elite, if I can’t afford to buy a house, then they can’t afford to move houses. My parents wouldn’t have a shot in the dark affording a new house.
Sell your 1 million dollar house that you own and pay $6000 on taxes for just to land back on the market and realize that you can afford a small condo for that and a jumbo loan 😜.
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.
We should tear them from their homes and send them back where they came from.
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
If you click through to the Business Insider article you can see that it’s a misquote. Private investors accounted for 44% of the flips in 2023, not 44% of all single family home purchases total. That’s still a problem, but it’s a huuuuuge difference. Flips are a small minority of home sales.
Thanks for the correction. I remembered seeing that number but didn’t analyze it in any depth. A more detailed analysis of the market, by Freddie Mac, concluded that there were four main drivers for the recent surge in prices, and investors weren’t on the list.
- record low mortgage rates in 2020 and 2021, and the race to beat future rate increases;
- limited supply from underbuilding and below average distressed sales;
- an increase in first-time homebuyers due to favorable age demographics; and
- increased migration from high-cost cities to areas that already had a housing shortage.
Institutional investors apparently even reduced their purchases in 23 - some of them were even net sellers - because of prices and interest rates. That doesn’t mean they aren’t still villians in this scenario. I don’t think big investors should own single family homes at all. But still they aren’t as big a force as my previous comment indicated.
Fucking hell that’s shocking
It’s not even close to true. Here’s an article about it
Not only are corporations buying up houses to rent, they’re actively preventing new houses for purchase from being built through “build to rent” schemes. They use the already scarce construction resources and divert them to building housing with the sole intention of renting them out.
So they’re keeping the supply houses available to own down, and then preventing new supply from being created. It’s a giant fuck you from corporations and shitty local government for letting it happen.
Article makes it sound like an old people problem. It isn’t. It’s a systemic one. People can’t afford houses.
And they want the old people to just leave their homes when their kids move out? As if there aren’t tons of other reasons to stay in your home.
It’s a weird article that’s trying to put generations against each other.
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.
The actual solution is to build more and reject the idea that homes should be a monetary investment (because that requires limited supply, which requires that somebody who needs a home in an area can’t get it in order to make demand drive the price up)
It really isn’t the solution.
I would totally agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that there is an abysmal amount of vacant homes.
Investment companies buy up entire neighborhoods leaving them empty allowing them to jack prices up in the area for rentals.
This has nothing to do with there being not enough homes. The issue is investment companies turning housing into a monopoly.
Building more won’t do shit because investment firms will gobble those up too. New homes are mad expensive too so the only people affording them are rich people or investment firms.
Remove Wall Street from housing and the problem is solved.
Investment companies does make it worse, but they wouldn’t be able to cause a crisis if homes were built in such volumes that they can’t be investments. They’re buying expecting value to go up. Build enough and that can’t happen.
Right, we had the same issue before investment companies got big, and before airBnB. They just made it worse and the jump in interest rates made houses suddenly even less affordable
As someone who does have a house, I wanted to start pre-paying my mortgage so that’s not hanging over my head so long. However with interest rates as low as they are, I’m much better off even just dropping but I to a savings account …. Anyhow, my point is that even if I wanted to sell, such as to downsize, that’s a bad deal given interest rates
You don’t understand. You must be angry at old people, not rich people or companies.
Well, try to build high density housing near them and see what happens.
“Rich people hate this one simple trick”
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
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.
“Shortage of homes” created by a parasitic class of people and corporations who gobble up all the available homes
Baby boomers aren’t some evil monolith hiding in the closet waiting to steal your bag of Oreos.
Where do you propose they move to? Even if we wanted them to vacate homes, there’s an assisted living shortage (heads up, article is kind ehhhhhhhh overall) so we can’t just shove them somewhere.
Baby boomers aren’t, but capitalists are.
They’re the ones who gobble up all available real estate to manipulate everyone else with for their own benefit.
I assume that was Karashta’s intent, not Baby boomers as you deflected to.
The plan was that they sell their home and downsize into an easier to maintain condo.
Sure, if this hyper-abundance of condos exists. Unfortunately it doesn’t.
It existed 15 years ago, when millennials were starting to move out of their parents’ home.
Sure, but that’s 15 years ago and homebuilders drastically slowed down since then. Now the Boomers can’t sell their house and move somewhere cheaper screwing up a source of money for their retirement.
We’re all fucked in this mess, it doesn’t matter which generation you’re in.
What everyone is saying is that boomers were greedy. They held on to everything. Jobs, homes, they voted away our social safety nets because they wanted to keep their tax money and voted for conservatives and neo liberals.
Now the younger generation had a late start in life because of this. They got an education but couldn’t find jobs. They wanted to get a house to raise a family but they had to forfeit that whole idea because of the little savings they could make. And because raising a child in a one bedroom 500sqft apartment, or condo unit at best, isn’t ideal.
You’re directing the blame at the working class when the political system created these problems.
Who did you vote for in 2008? The neoliberal or the neocon?
2012? Neoliberal or neocon?
2020? The neoliberal or the alt-right lunatic?
2024? The neoliberal or the alt-right lunatic?
As a millennial I have a pretty bad track record by voting for all these neolibs
They can go rent the places everyone else is currently forced to because of their generational bullshit.
It ain’t the boomers doing that. It’s the corporations.
And who runs those corporations?
Rich out of touch assholes ranging from Boomers, Gen X and millennials?
Bunk beds in assisted living, pack them in tight so they briefly get to experience a taste of the consequences of their generation’s gluttony before shuffling off this mortal coil. The rich won’t be affected, of course, so significant opposition isn’t likely. Through their votes and actions, they made their bed so now they get to climb up and lie in it.
Yeah? And if a person from the third world whose island is half under water because of your ‘luxurious’ lifestyle comes to you for some of that sweet justice? The average American emits 15 times the CO2 compared to someone in Tuvalu. Would you like to be put in the bed you made?
Oh you’re not the one that made the system the way it is? Well neither did the majority of “boomers”.
Whatever ailment you’re going through life right now, I hope you find a way to get through it.
This take is not from a healthy mind.
Thanks doc.
Truts me a single individual owning a home is not a problem and it isn’t what is causing housing insecurity.
It’s corporations that own thousands even millions of homes
Similar in principle to carbon emissions: yeah, people individually have a carbon footprint, but corporations and industrial activities dwarf that.
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
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.
Also, y’know just the overall lack of houses. It’s not all greedy investors
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/ 10% of homes in 2022 in the US were empty
That stat by itself means nothing because
- Second homes/vacation homes of wealthy individuals
- Natural vacancy in between buyers/renters/airbnb/refurbishment etc.
- There’s no point to a vacant house in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Populations are constantly moving.
It disproves the idea that there aren’t enough homes. When i was homeless person I didnt care where the house was. Second homes of the wealthy are vacant. landlords are part of the problem and are scum.
Second homes/vacation homes of wealthy individuals
The GOP’s constant gigantic tax cuts for the rich are a huge force inflating costs of houses for everyone.
It’s the scapegoat to try and avoid the legislation that needs to happen to put a stop to this bullshit.
I’m all for blaming boomers, but what about the corporations and foreign entities buying up single family homes?
You can’t blame corporations. Lobbyists passed a law against that.
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… :)
