this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 187 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months 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.

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[–] [email protected] 157 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] saintshenanigans 151 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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"

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Exactly. My parents are boomers and own one house. But my sister and her son live with them, so they are utilizing their space.

It's the corporations that own several rentals, complexes, etc that drive rent and house prices up. Can't compete with their practices .

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are so many “boomer bad”, “genx vs millenniall”, “zoomers are lazy” stories lately. Seems like they got tired of just pitting races against each other and moved onto fake generational conflict. This way we don’t notice what the billionaires are doing to all of us. Meanwhile the 5 richest billionaires doubled their net worth.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

This. it’s ok to own a home. It’s ok to rent a home. people need places to live.

What’s not ok is being a slumlord.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

yeah kinda feels like the corporations trying to push a bogeyman to distract us.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 10 months ago (16 children)

As usual, no mention of Gen X.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago

the ninja generation

listen close, theyre around here somewhere..

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (2 children)

A few years ago my grandparents were in a memory care facility as their health declined. It cost them $18,000 a month to stay there. Adjusting for inflation that's like $22,000 a month.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (13 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Really tired of big news companies blaming individuals for industries ruined by the greedy elite, if I can't afford to buy a house, then they can't afford to move houses. My parents wouldn't have a shot in the dark affording a new house.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Boomers shouldn't have to part with their homes. They, too, need a place to live.

The issue is not Boomers owning the house they live in and refusing to leave it (even if it might be larger than they require) The issue is in particularly large corporations owning thousands of properties and taking them away from the housing market.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This is a fucking bullshit article. Between Airbnb and filthy scum investment companies buying up homes to rent, actual owners are nowhere near the biggest problem

Stop upvoting shit like this. CNN = Clearly Not News

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And they want the old people to just leave their homes when their kids move out? As if there aren't tons of other reasons to stay in your home.

It's a weird article that's trying to put generations against each other.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Not that weird. The corporate media has been pushing this narrative for a while. They realize that younger people don't respond to the old racism or anti-lgbtq. But "evil old boomers are stealing your house/money/whatever" seems to work like a charm. It's just another distraction.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Shortage of homes" created by a parasitic class of people and corporations who gobble up all the available homes

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Truts me a single individual owning a home is not a problem and it isn't what is causing housing insecurity.

It's corporations that own thousands even millions of homes

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

Well gee it's almost like after decades of being told they should treat houses as investments to be collected instead of sold, they listened.

The problem isn't boomers. It's people buying more than they need during a crisis.

Don't let them make you forget that 44 percent of homes were bought by corporations in 2023. In cash, above asking, no inspection.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I love this community, seeing through the generational conflict bullshit.

Makes me wonder if the corporate propaganda networks are going to be in trouble because this seems to be one actual generational trend: younger generations don't seem to trust the media like older ones did.

I've seen CNN as basically Fox News but with a different target audience for over a decade now. They can't say as much stupid shit because that audience isn't as dumb as Fox's, but it's pushing the same divide and conquer shit.

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[–] Supermariofan67 40 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Media doing everything they can to keep people fighting each other rather than the owner class...

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I’m shocked! Is this yet another article that tries to blame the average American for the housing market problems instead of residential real estate “investors” buying up all the properties to rent or use as airbnbs?

Or what about the foreign investors who are buying up land and homes with what seems to be zero oversight?

But obviously it’s the boomers who just want to live in the house they bought.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm all for blaming boomers, but what about the corporations and foreign entities buying up single family homes?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago

You can't blame corporations. Lobbyists passed a law against that.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Corporate propaganda.

Obviously fuck boomers.

But we can't afford housing because of corporations. Not other people.

In general when other people are being blamed for your problems, it's corporate propaganda. They don't want us working together.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Boomers should have housing. And we shouldn’t ignore the idiosyncratic attachments that people develop to their homes. Saying “the boomers need to move so I can have a home” is no different than saying “that people group needs to move so my people group has living space.”

We can all have homes. The problem is that the corporations are incentivized to buy residential property and rent it to us. Fuck them.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (9 children)

How bout, now hear me out, we build more and better housing. I'm not throwing Grandma and Grandpa to the curb I'm overthrowing Capitalism first

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)

“Old people to blame for not selling their houses or dying sooner!"

Seriously, WTF? It's my house. The entitlement of some people...

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

We just need more of them, not some random group to get fucked out of their housing. Bleed the 1%

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Ok so we’re trying to blame boomers now for Airbnb now? Cuz there’s more than enough NEW housing that was turned into Airbnb by gobbling firms.

Brian Joseph Chesky (born August 29, 1981) is an American businessman and industrial designer and the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. Chesky is the 249th richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $8.6 billion, mostly due to his ownership of 76 million shares of Airbnb.

Where did Brian Chesky start Airbnb?

San Francisco Airbnb. In October 2007, the Industrial Designers Society of America was hosting a conference in San Francisco and all hotel rooms were booked. The pair could not afford rent for the month and decided to rent their apartment for money.

You can safely leave the boomers out of that conversation for how the unchecked system was actually broken by a millennial.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago

That’s not the problem.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Nice to gloss over the fact that home mortgage rates were double what they are now when they were buying them. My boomer parents’ rate was 12% for the majority of their 30-year mortgage (and that was considered great!). We’re trying to get them to move out of their 6 bedroom home I grew up in but they have deep roots where they are and aren’t interested in moving anytime soon.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I’m not a math whiz, but just using an online loan interest calculator, comparing the total cost of the median loan to median salaries for 1990 vs today, that 12% rate still doesn’t make up for the difference in home prices and the stagnating wages young people face today. Seven percent mortgage rate today (which is being generous) compared to 12% yesteryear, at homes that were one quarter of today’s price, with salaries that have grown by barely a third… it just doesn’t add up. I’m not saying your parents are wrong, I’m saying there is something wrong.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Why should they have to move? What is this unwritten law that says after 30 years you're required to sell your family home to someone younger? I get that the baby boomer generation has fucked up a lot, but I don't see why anyone should have to silently pack their belongings and shuffle off to a nursing home just because Junior wants his first big boy house...

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (4 children)

My parents live in Texas and I live in WA. They say they wish they could afford to live closer to me, but based on their actions it seems like they value having a big piece of real estate more than they value being close to me.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

They can’t sell. Their adult children have to live with them since they can’t afford anything else.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

I wrote out a very angry reply, but as often happens, as I cooled down and reflected, it was 100% the result of this enormously clickbait title, not the article itself.

The article itself DOES mention the mortgage rates, and it DOES acknowledge that Boomers might be willing to move out (in direct contradiction to its own title) but cannot bc of a shortage of affordable smaller homes, the same as everyone else.

In short, Boomers are trapped too - again it's not that they "won't" so much as they "can't" - even if sitting better in a home that they (hopefully) own rather than having to rent.

There is simply no excuse for such a rage-baiting, purposefully combative title.:-( Maybe we need to start using AI to generate new titles to replace those profit-mongering ones? :-)

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (4 children)

And where is it suggested boomers should live? My MIL has a paid-for home, but is now in assisted living. It costs 6K a month, which is eating through her savings at a shocking rate, even though we're paying a portion of her AL rent.

If she had the ability to stay home, you better believe she would, because she can't afford to part with her home.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nobody expects anyone to give up their own home.

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