Posted on 11/22/2019 10:41:46 PM PST by NoLibZone
SUN CITY, Ariz. — When this Phoenix suburb opened on January 1, 1960, it was billed as the original retirement community. From above, it would look like a UFO landing site, laid out in rings to mimic halos surrounding the sun. Just past the entrance, a billboard flanked by rows of palm trees promised “An Active New Way Of Life.”
On the weekend Sun City opened, cars were backed up for 2 miles as some 100,000 visitors waited to gawk at a village built specifically for adults over the age of 50. They found a new nine-hole golf course and a community center with 250-seat auditorium, swimming pool, shuffleboard court and lawn bowling green. Elsewhere there was a 30,000-square-foot Grand Shopping Center, a Safeway grocery store and a Hiway House Motor Hotel, where you could have a cup of coffee or something stronger at the bar. “The finest resort couldn’t supply more,” boasted a fictional resident of Sun City in a promotional video from the period.
The big question looming in this neighborhood — and dozens of others like it in the Southeast and Rust Belt — is what happens to everything from home prices to the local economy when so many homes post ‘For Sale’ signs around the same time?
The U.S. is at the beginning of a tidal wave of homes hitting the market on the scale of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. This time it won’t be driven by overbuilding, easy credit or irrational exuberance, but by an inevitable fact of life: the passing of the baby boomer generation.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I'm in my mid 50s and my wife and I made the decision a couple of years ago to sell our home and move to an over-55 condo community, that was in process of being built in our town. Took me over a year to finally sell the house and we took nearly a $100K loss on the sale.
No regrets though. Glad to be finally rid of that large home and it was nice to not have to rake leaves this fall - looking even more forward to not having to shovel snow. It's getting tough to move big houses in this area (Southern CT) due to the incredible property taxes. I don't know how younger people can afford it. Not only is the typical home around here over a half million dollars (metro NYC) but property taxes will run you around $15k a year. In fact, my properly tax bill has been higher than my mortgage payment for years now. I just don't know how younger people are going to do it - my own grown children are in apartments, owning a home is out of reach for them (despite fact they both make what I consider a good salary). I tell them it's more important to start funding their retirement at this point.
So I see a major correction down the road with real estate as people move from owning homes to apartment/condo living.
By the way, the over-55 condo community I just moved into completely sold out and all units were sold pre-construction. Huge demand for these communities as Boomers continue to retire.
During our remodeling(s) over the past year, 100% of that stuff was put out with the garbage.
We also had the water heater leak last year, what a mess!
Millennials are buying homes, just not in the expensive coastal cities of the northeast and west coast. I just heard a news report touting Greensboro, NC as one of the top ten markets for relocating millennials, due to a healthy job market and a comparatively very low cost of living. They’re not buying houses in expensive markets because they’re priced out. They’re buying them in markets that represent a value, with decent employment prospects and cost of living that is not through the roof. If there is lasting impact of boomers retiring, downsizing and eventually dying, it will be in those expensive markets, which will decline unless replacement buyers are imported. It will also impact prices of second home vacation markets. I’ve got a friend looking to relocate from Oregon back to her native California (sounds nutty I know, but it’s home for her). She’s looking in Groveland, Pine Mountain Lake. There are some very decent houses for sale there for less than 300K. HOA is not that high for the amenities they offer. The area has historically been summer places for Bay Area residents, but it’s now shifting over to full time residents. Telecommuting, semi-retired, retired people. It’s a very pretty area. I’ve seen worse property taxes. The big deal is insurance due to fire risk, so tile roofs and fiber cement siding as well as minimal tree coverage are a big deal there.
Good post.
That's funny...and mostly true!
When I was coming of age in the late 1970s, it was considered embarrassing for a grownup to live with their folks and a mark of failure (think "Meathead" from All In The Family). In fact, a grown man still living at home would have had trouble finding a date as no self-respecting girl would date him. Having a bachelor's pad on the other hand would draw girls to you like flies.
How that has changed.
Now I consider myself very fortunate as my own grown children are on their own and have been out of the house since their early 20s. But that is due in part to fact that I relocated to another part of the country for my job about 6 years ago. They decided to stay in the area they grew up in and was best thing for them so far as becoming independent.
I have some peers who have 30-something children still living with them that have never moved out. I suppose there might be some situations where that works out but doesn't seem healthy to me.
It’s not always the children at fault...some parents either regard their kids as property/bipedal pets, or just emotionally can’t or won’t let go of ‘em. And when you’re brought up in that environment, it can be very hard to break free.
Let's hope it doesn't ever come to that.
Which is the REAL reason for building permits. It's a way for them to reassess a home and hit you up for more tax money for any improvements.
Funny story, when I had my Massachusetts home up for sale about 6 years ago, my realtor erroneously listed it as having three baths instead of the 2 1/2 baths it actually had. Almost immediately, we had a reassessment. We had to have it corrected.
Half a bathroom and the town was ready to sock it to me! Give me a break.
Your internet must be high since you are using the cellphone system for Netflix etc. I amused that on old 3G phone is used as your hotspot.
I have some family members who tried the RV lifestyle. They ended up hating it. It does look romantic however from the outside looking in...."Just travel around the country without a care in the world..."
Good point. Personally, I don’t blame the Millennials all that much. It was the Boomer parents - who for some reason became super-controlling “helicopter parents” who had to carefully choreograph and micromanage every minute of their child’s life.
Both our mothers passed a few years back within months of each other (the wife’s and mine). We backed a U-Haul truck into her Mom’s driveway...I backed a couple construction waste dumpsters into my Mom’s drive. The wife still hasn’t forgiven me...LOL!
How True, LOL. Too funny!
“Please enlighten us about Bardstown or provide details via FReepmail. Thanks.”
A KY National Guard unit, of which Bardstown contributed a good many, suffered terrible casualties in Vietnam. I think that unit sustained more casualties than any other NG contingent in Vietnam.
Especially in rural areas
There are some recent worked examples of this from the Balkans, Argentina, Syria, and Venezuela. Read the accounts of "Farfel", and "Selco" for detailed experiences with this sort of thing.
TLDR?
Rural hideouts tend to be regularly overrun by one local bandit faction after another until they are requisitioned by Provincial Government forces.
Small towns seem to do best. Suburbs show mixed results. Large cities do better than you might think, except for designated kill zones formerly occupied by unpopular ethnic/racial groups. Don't be in one of those areas when things crash. Members of organized criminal gangs do very well for a while. Eventually they become the new local Government - or the Provincial Government comes in and exterminates them.
100 miles away from the most recent hot zone, life goes on and everything looks "normal". The hot zones move from one metropolitan area to another.
I agree.
A lot of the environmentalist movement is designed to get younger Americans to accept a lot less voluntarily - and feel good about doing it. No cars or homes of their own, or children...
IT IS WORKING.
Depending on how your taxes are calculated, wouldn’t you want them to add taxes as homes add living space, amenities, etc. (if they are part of the calculation)? I’m as anti-tax as the colonists who rose up against the Crown, but I also see primarily foreign-born residents who work in the trades skirting this issue - so the taxes on my single-family home are the same as their converted two-family homes (they don’t add bathrooms, they add apartments - and therefore, children to the school systems, more cars on the street, etc.).
Either way, you don’t want your home burning to the ground (possibly taking lives with it) because the neighbor installed his own uninspected wiring.
Actually there were 77 million baby boomers (your analysis neglects the people who died).
True. They were consistently ignored across the entire post, so there would be more non-boomers for the same reason. The bottom line is that there are plenty of buyers and plenty of house. Some like old, some like new, and some like the best deal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.