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.

  • blazera
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    11 year ago

    They trying to distract us. I aint looking at the single home owning boomers, its landlords and corporate real estate companies hoarding homes.

    • @Volume@lemmy.world
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      11 year ago

      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.

    • @PlainSimpleGarak@lemm.ee
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      -11 year ago

      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?

    • @Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      -11 year ago

      Mostly, you’re right, IMO. But these same people will vote against affordable housing being built near them… “Not in my backyard!”

  • @Coreidan@lemmy.world
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    11 year ago

    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.

      • @Smoogs@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        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.

      • @EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        -11 year ago

        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.

  • 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”

  • @Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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    01 year ago

    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.

    • @CoreOffset@lemm.ee
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      01 year ago

      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.

      • FuglyDuck
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        01 year ago

        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.

        • @CoreOffset@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          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 42 46(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.

          • @vividspecter@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            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.

  • @JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
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    01 year ago

    Article makes it sound like an old people problem. It isn’t. It’s a systemic one. People can’t afford houses.

    • Cyborganism
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      11 year ago

      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.

      • BeautifulMind ♾️
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        -11 year ago

        They’re not the ones being affected by the boomers.

        My dude, they’ve been riding us our whole lives

    • Zorque
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      11 year ago

      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.