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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[–] 187 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years 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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    [–] 158 points 2 years 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.

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    [–] 153 points 2 years 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"

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    [–] 89 points 2 years ago (16 children)

    As usual, no mention of Gen X.

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    [–] 82 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years 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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    [–] 71 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    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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    [–] 67 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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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    [–] 63 points 2 years 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

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    [–] 61 points 2 years 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.

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    [–] 56 points 2 years ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 49 points 2 years 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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    [–] 48 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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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    [–] 45 points 2 years 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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    [–] 39 points 2 years 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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    [–] 34 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

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    [+] 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)
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    [–] 30 points 2 years 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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    [–] 29 points 2 years 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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    [–] 29 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    “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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    [–] 27 points 2 years ago (1 child)

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

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    [–] 26 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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

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    [–] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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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    [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    That’s not the problem.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years 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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    [–] 19 points 2 years 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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    [–] 18 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Boomers are not the enemy. Corporations are.

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    [–] 18 points 2 years 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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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago

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

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Nobody expects anyone to give up their own home.

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    [–] 14 points 2 years 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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    [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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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