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Why Baby Boomers May Bust the Housing Market
The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 16, 2008 | Lauren Baier Kim

Posted on 01/18/2008 5:08:33 PM PST by Lorianne

Think the current housing downturn and the subprime mortgage mess is the worst of the housing market’s problems? Not so, according to a report published this month in the Journal of the American Planning Association.

About to wreak havoc on the housing market are the 78 million American baby boomers who will “retire, relocate, and eventually withdraw from the housing market,” according to report authors Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography in the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California, and SungHo Ryu, an associate planner with the Southern California Association of Governments.

Using demographic data to show that individuals in their mid-60s tend to sell more often than buy, the authors contend that when boomers — a “dominant force in the housing market” — start reaching the age of 65 in the year 2011, a market shift will occur. Some retirees will be looking to downsize, others will relocate to warmer climes, while others will move to nursing homes, says Mr. Myers. As they transition out of the housing market or look to sell their homes, in some states there will be “more homes available for sale than there are buyers for them.” Home prices will soften.

The “sell-off” will create a sizeable hurdle for the housing market, because as Mr. Myers puts it, “It isn’t money that buys property, it’s warm bodies. If you don’t have enough warm bodies to fill up the space, the space stays empty.”

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: babyboomers; housing; realestate
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It’s the least the aging boomers can do for them while they suck up young peoples’ FICA payments.

____________________________________________________

Can you send me yours direct?


41 posted on 01/18/2008 6:28:24 PM PST by JohnD9207 (Lead...follow...or get the HELL out of the way!)
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To: Incorrigible; qam1; ItsOurTimeNow; PresbyRev; Fraulein; StoneColdGOP; Clemenza; m18436572; ...
Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  


42 posted on 01/18/2008 6:39:30 PM PST by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: Lorianne

That’s why we need illegal aliens.

SO THEY WILL BUY HOMES AMERICANS WON’T BUY!!!!

VOTE McCAIN FOR AMNESTY FOR ALL!!!

SI SE PUEDE


43 posted on 01/18/2008 6:45:59 PM PST by dirtstiff
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To: Retain Mike
Gosh, you're the first one I've heard coining this babyboom generation the "Worst Generation" and that they are. I'm one of them myself and it disgusts me how we will suck the blood out of the generations behind us so that they can pay for my $100,000's of healthcare. And when I can't afford a place to live, rather than moving back in with my children, I'll take a little more and get some subsidized housing. Need more income, I'll join my other 77 million and vote myself a social security cost of living raise. There's a large group of politicians just waiting to promise me one, and I'll vote for him/her. I'll do it and scream that I'm entitled to it - after all, I paid my $30,000 into it while I was working. I am indeed a member of the "Worst Generation"
44 posted on 01/18/2008 6:47:08 PM PST by mek1959
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To: Lorianne
I can agree with that.

I'm nearing retirement, don't need a large house, don't want to live in this community which has adopted a paternalistic attitude toward its residents, has gone "green" and bought into the "smart growth" agenda.

I'm tired of being told what color my housepaint can be, when I can water my grass or wash my car, what sort of acouterments my pets must have, when I can burn my woodstove, how far off the sidewalk my trees and bushes have to be, when I have to mow or not mow my grass and how to dispose of the clippings, what I do with my soft drink or water bottles, where I can smoke or not, how much I have to pay my employees, and whether or not I can have trans-fat-cooked french fries.

To add insult to injury, I can't even leave the house without being subjected to red light and speeding camera tickets or random roadblocks to make sure I'm wearing my seatbelt.

I'll be looking for a little freedom.

Right now, the leader is Estonia, which is a very sad commentary.

45 posted on 01/18/2008 6:58:13 PM PST by elkfersupper
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To: SkyPilot

“It is already beginning to impact some of the local townships here in New Jersey. When housing prices took off, townships re-assessed the property and hiked up property tax rates.”
.....same thing when we lived in suburban Maryland...and I had 23 acres that qualified as a agricultural assesment...owned the place free and clear and the taxes were like a mortgage payment in and of itself.


46 posted on 01/18/2008 7:01:13 PM PST by STONEWALLS
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To: elkfersupper

“I’ll be looking for a little freedom.”

....we were too and that’s why we moved to rural NC...and if it gets too crowded here we’ll move again....as long as I’m 20 minutes or less to Walmart I’m happy....I can’t stand the noise and congestion of cities/suburbs any more.


47 posted on 01/18/2008 7:06:10 PM PST by STONEWALLS
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To: Lorianne

When I read “withdraw from the housing market”, I thought, well, yes, unless we bury them in their houses.


48 posted on 01/18/2008 7:10:21 PM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: randita
"As a baby boomer looking to retire in a few years and move from PA, I discovered a lot in my research for where to retire. FL, SC and much of NC (and even eastern TN near the Smokies) have already run up much more than the average middle class retiree can afford. Development in many of those areas is not being done aesthetically and with an idea toward land preservation."

Especially east Tennessee. Don't go there. Just a bunch of hillbillies & hicks down here anyway;).

49 posted on 01/18/2008 7:20:43 PM PST by HangThemHigh (Entropy's not what it used to be.)
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To: Graybeard58

LOL I was born in 47.


50 posted on 01/18/2008 7:34:20 PM PST by freekitty
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To: freekitty
LOL I was born in 47.

Oh you kid!

51 posted on 01/18/2008 7:57:27 PM PST by Graybeard58 ( Remember and pray for SSgt. Matt Maupin - MIA/POW- Iraq since 04/09/04)
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To: Retain Mike

“The focus of society since WW II has been on how to make Baby Boomer (My generation. Born in 1946) passage through life ever more comforting and affluent.”

Oh, please. The Baby Boomers only reflected the morality and ideals of their parents. Their parents gave us FDR, social security, a new idea that socialism was good — in short they decided that freedom was not as important as control by others. The Boomers merely took their parents’ irresponsibility to a new level, but it was their parents that taught them the way to think.

For example, John Dewey, the premier educator in the country in the early part of the 20th century, wrote his socialist tomes about the utopian society without God and without morals. He was part of Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation”. Most of the intelligentsia of the early 20th century believed strongly and pushed the ideas which were supposedly introduced by the 60’s liberals.

The Baby Boomers are merely the fruition of the seeds their parents sowed.


52 posted on 01/18/2008 7:58:04 PM PST by webstersII
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To: I_like_good_things_too
I laughed at our advisor & told him no way in hell would they not be taxing those funds in 30 years.

So you've heard of the Fair Tax.

53 posted on 01/18/2008 8:04:40 PM PST by Doe Eyes
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To: Retain Mike

You said it!


54 posted on 01/18/2008 8:10:04 PM PST by elk
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To: webstersII

Indeed!


55 posted on 01/18/2008 8:11:29 PM PST by elk
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To: Graybeard58

And I might say the same of you. LOL


56 posted on 01/18/2008 8:20:31 PM PST by freekitty
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To: Lorianne
“It isn’t money that buys property, it’s warm bodies. If you don’t have enough warm bodies to fill up the space, the space stays empty.”

And the prices plummet, too.

Looks like lots of buying opportunities lie ahead for us Generation X folks.

57 posted on 01/18/2008 8:24:57 PM PST by Alberta's Child (I'm out on the outskirts of nowhere . . . with ghosts on my trail, chasing me there.)
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To: ThomasThomas
So if we live to long we drain the Social Security system and if we die we mess up market value of homes?

Well, heck, may as well stick around then...

58 posted on 01/18/2008 8:26:49 PM PST by Dead Dog
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
It's the least the aging boomers can do for them while they suck up young peoples' FICA payments.

I'm a boomer, I'm aging, and I'm still paying the limit

... and I still say the young peoples is gonna be huntin' us down in the streets before it's over.

59 posted on 01/18/2008 8:27:08 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: webstersII
The Baby Boomers are merely the fruition of the seeds their parents sowed.

And you yourself are ... what?

The first and only free thinking individual in the history of earth?

60 posted on 01/18/2008 8:31:52 PM PST by dr_lew
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