Generations X and Y suffer boomer-angst

Well, I have an opinion (groundless?) that too many Boomers are using their house as a nest egg and taking too much comfort in the fact that they haven't enough savings.

I don't think, either, that the younger generation should feel absolute panic about buying a house (or be priced out forever!!). My pre-boomer inlaws didn't buy their first home 'til they were in their late 30s.

The ones who do win in this case are Boomers who get to live off of the massive debt of the younger generation. In 1994 when we bought our house it was 3x our combined income. And we both had entry-level jobs (were in our early 20s). That is really impossible to do at this time in the same market.

It's just the D.C. area (and the other areas with recent speculator-driven run-ups) to which I'm mostly referring. Obviously it doesn't apply in most of flyover country.

What makes you think I"m not paying my own way -- and how will me having a big house make me "living off" you?>

Will we younger generation of taxpayers have to bail out (somewhere down the line) these reverse home loan boomers? What happens when they leave a glut of homes behind that need to be sold to pay off the government? According to the current census data we have record vacant houses already.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121600864.html

The Evolving Reverse Mortgage
Retiring Baby Boomers to Shift Profile of Typical Borrower
By Lynn Adler
Reuters
Saturday, December 17, 2005; Page F21

[This guy is still in debt!]

"NEW YORK -- Robert Simmons, a 67-year-old retired personal chef, wanted to pay off debt and travel to China, where he sponsors the tuition of several children."

"He recently took a reverse mortgage on his home of nearly 20 years in tony Southampton, N.Y., using the proceeds to pay down his remaining $80,000 mortgage, close a credit line for house repairs and buy a new car outright."

. . . "Everything was paid off and I'm debt-free except for credit cards," Simmons said. "It just gives an ease of mind that I don't have to pay for anything now." . . .

"The risk to investors, namely No. 1 U.S. home funding source Fannie Mae, which buys Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (another name for reverse mortgages) from lenders, is offset by FHA insurance. FHA is an arm of HUD".

This was earlier in the article:

"A House subcommittee will also meet to debate a bill eliminating a cap on the amount of reverse mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA insures 90 percent of all U.S. reverse loans"

Oh, that's funny, because my parents, who are boomers, were preteens when Roe. v. Wade was passed. But there will be problems when boomers retire, to some extent. A lot of boomers I know know that there will not be much in the pot when they reach 67; and frankly, there are not enough Gen-X, Millennials, and Gen-Z around to get the tax money from. In fact, some article I read said that there are at least 10 million less in the Gen-X generation and the Millennial generations alone. Boomers do have thier problems, but the whole abortion thing is not something they invented; in fact my grandparents claim thier generation did that. I hate how they claim that when Xers and Millennials are not as workaholic as they are, we are all slackers--when in reality, as far as I am concerned there is more to life than working all day long and on holidays and weekends. Boomers were lousy parents; but in a sense, because they were that way, that is what made Gen-X and the Millennials as conservative and family oriented as they are. But slacker bums my generation is not; although the Millennials have a bad habit of coming late to things--work included, and often *forget* to tell you they cannot come.

nevadagrl435 (04.12.1983)

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