Baby boomers are snatching houses out of the hands of millennials

Business Insider ^ | Oct 16, 2021 | Hillary Hoffower,Andy Kiersz

[where's_the_Outrage?]

Boomers and millennials are competing for houses, per a new Zillow report. Boomers are winning.

Boomers have more cash to win bidding wars as they take advantage of an appreciating market.

Buying a home has been hard enough for millennials, who are struggling with skyhigh prices and a lack of starter homes.

Baby boomers and millennials are in a housing war.

It's boomers who are winning, according to a Zillow report released this week. It found that so many boomers are active in the housing market that it's become more difficult for millennials to buy a home.

As seen in the chart below, Americans 60 years old and older have been more active in the housing market in the past decade than people in the same age group 10 years earlier. The share of homebuyers in this cohort grew by 47% from 2009 to 2019. Meanwhile, the share of younger buyers ages 18 to 39 in the past decade has shrunk by 13% in the same time frame.

[setter]

I love it. Sums it up best.

I read it here all the time. “I worked summers and paid for all of my college. These youngins are too lazy to work”

[LouAvul]

My first house was @ 14% interest, and I thought that was a bargain. It was after Carter and the ~25% interest rate debacle.

[RckyRaCoCo]

Same here...and this was the "lucrative" SoCal market.

I refi'ed(to 11.5%)...then the market died.

Timing is everything.

Ironically, the company I had worked for at the time basically shutdown a lot of their manufacturing, outsourced it/moved it out of state(dem. eco-push-out). The mfg. site was razed to the ground and what arose became to be known as "ground-zero" of the sub-prime fiasco/disaster that followed.

Figures.

[GOPJ]

I am in the process of downsizing. Same size house, but no basement. 20 years accumulation needs to go.

Take the stuff you want then turn the rest over to a reputable firm that does 'estate sales/yard sales. If you're anxious - be the first at your yard sale and buy back anything you'll miss.

[duckman]

“... and interest rates were over 10 percent.”
Must have been during the Carter years. My rate was 9.75 during Jimmie’s reign.

[moovova]

We cleared out the partially-floored attic of EVERYTHING except the HVAC unit. Had new insulation blown in.

Now, it’s just a big, beautiful, pristine...empty cavern. We’ll never put anything up there again.

[dynachrome]

The good stuff went on consignment at the local gun store. Nothing else worth and auction.

[MayflowerMadam]

Across the street from us in (what used to be) an upscale subdivision, a developer has bought up all the available lots. They’re throwing together rows of s**tbox houses, which have “SOLD” signs in front before they’re half built. I’ve seen the people coming to look/buy, and they seem to be millennials more than boomers.

When we bought, our realtor said there was “no way” houses could be built there due to the extreme slope, and that seemed to make sense. Yet, here they are.

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

[Mr. Jeeves]

Government has made it unprofitable to build middle-income housing, so the supply is now severely constrained.

Government elected by those same Millennials who are unhappy.

[djf]

The RE market is quite a bit overpriced.
People are always excited to have experiences like yours... I wonder how they’ll feel when they go to the supermarket and see an 8 oz pack of potato chips on sale for $6.19? A seven dollar/gallon price for gas?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you or anything but there is something to be said for long-term stability. If something goes wrong and the loans start getting called in there will be hell to pay!

[setter]

Our rural area is retired old geezers as we have no jobs. All the industry was offshored years ago. Homes are dirt cheap. I should say were. Millennials are moving in droves due to cheap housing.

We built a Mcmansion and thought we would be stuck with it.

A young millennial couple really bothered us to sell this year. They both work from home and were from the Philly area. Never did know what they did for a living but they had a letter of credit from their bank.

I want to sell and downsize but wife has her dream horse barn, riding arena etc and won’t move.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

We bought a second house almost four years ago north of Coeur d’Alene, ID. Turns out we bought in the hottest appreciation market in the country. Thank God we bought when we did as there’s no way we could have gotten in today.

I joke we are doing everything wrong in retirement — doubled our number of stories (one to two), doubled our house size (1,600 to 3,400), doubled our lot size (1/4 to 1/2 acre), doubled our latitude (well, not quite), and halved our average temperature (California to Idaho)! We are upsizing instead of downsizing. It sure feels good having the extra space and peace and quiet.

[dynachrome]

Easier than a basement. Have a window or cut a window and toss into the dumpster. A basement means it has to be hauled up stairs.

[Mom MD]

Enjoy your retirement. DH has been retired for 2 years and I will join him shortly. He has stopped talking about downsizing and is talking about saying in our current house long term. I guess the millennials will have to wait a while

[Drew68]

Government elected by those same Millennials who are unhappy.

It wasn't millennials who elected the politicians that screwed everything up.

It wasn't millennials who elected the politicians who outsourced our entire manufacturing base while importing armies of immigrants to work the few blue collar jobs that remained (at now slave wages).

It wasn't millennials who voted for politicians that raised the price of a college degree to that of a new home, while requiring one for every white collar job (many of which previously did not require a degree).

It wasn't millennials who voted for politicians that raised the cost of health care to the point where a child's broken arm could bankrupt a family.

I could go on and on.

Millennials didn't vote for any of this stuff. It was their parents and grandparents who voted for every socialist program that passed through Washington.

So when millennials vote in their own flavor of socialism, don't be surprised. They learned from their parents.

[moovova]

My wife’s Lefty sister and her Lefty husband just cut-off their son’s allowance.

He’s 35 and married.

[ConservativeInPA]

This sounds a bit ageist and just another one of these divide and make victims attempts. Change the title to 'People who saved money are snatching houses out of the hands of those who haven't saved money' and you get to the root of the problem.

My daughter is a bit unusual as Gen Z kids go. (She's not even a millennial.) She started working when she was 14, and saved. By the time she was high school age, she was essentially self-homeschooling. As long as she was showing excellence in her school work, we allowed her to work as much as she wanted. When she was 16 she bought a car and paid her own insurance. When she turned 18 she did several big things. Instead of going to college, she chose to work full time and moved out. (Rented a townhouse with friends.) She also began traveling with her savings - first trip to Europe (own her own); then in subsequent years to Iceland (on her own), and Mexico in the middle of COVID (with friends). She bought her first house three years ago and she is closing on her second home next week. She will be renting her first home (already found a tenant) at double the mortgage payment (positive cash flow) and moving into her second home.

She worked her way up to be a GM at a restaurant and now complains about 'kids' and their work ethic. She will be 25 in November. (I still think of her as a kid, but certainly have treated her as an adult for a very long time.) She has no student loans. She has her own retirement and investment accounts that she manages and has savings - even after purchasing a second home. Oh, and she has a social life although she works so much that she only goes out once or twice per week. She would like to go out more, but she currently has to work extra because it is so difficult to hire people right now. She constantly has problems with people of all ages being reliable enough to show up at work and do a good job. I am willing to bet those people do not save and do not buy homes.

The equation is simple: Be reliable. Show up at work (on-time and in work effort). Save. Invest. In other words, be a capitalist - OWN. It is also important to have fun along the way. These things are possible for just about anyone with a little maturity.

[frank ballenger]

Reply to the headline of thread-——

Old Age and Treachery Always Overcomes Youth and Skill

[MayflowerMadam]

“Every Boomer I know has HELPED their kids buy or rent a house. A lot of us write them checks on a semi-regular basis to keep them afloat.”

That’s been our experience, observing other boomer friends. (We don’t have kids, so can’t give a first-person perspective.) Our friends enable their loser kids every step of the way in many ways. Of course, there’s the money that they keep shelling out — even buying houses for them. My friend’s adult son is such a dork that she managed his life (checkbook, pays bills, pays insurance, etc.). Of course, he let her. When she died three years ago, his life changed a lot.

[cicero2k]

Millennials don’t want to own assets Real or otherwise to their detriment. A dollar a day they would never miss gets them over a million inflation adjusted dollars in 40 years. They are too lazy to do the math. We had to upsize in order to accommodate daughter husband and grandson. We are blessed in many ways.