How Will Retiring Boomers Affect the Real Estate Market?

Some experts believe the next financial crisis will be tied to retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. There are at least 78 million baby boomers in the United States, and research indicates that an average of 4 million will retire each year over the next 20 years. When factoring in the assumption that 75 percent are married couples or families, at least 1.5 million households will enter retirement annually. Baby boomers are responsible for much of the demand for large, suburban, single-family homes between 1990 and 2010; and when many of them decide to downsize when they retire, it begs the question of who will buy all the homes that will subsequently hit the market — particularly in areas where population growth is stagnant or declining. This becomes more of a concern when today’s low birth rates are taken into consideration, along with the fact that most buyers between the ages of 25 and 35 would rather live in multifamily housing than large suburban houses. Although the growing population of Hispanics could potentially absorb the supply — as they are more likely to live in multigenerational family groups and need big single-family homes — this demographic would have to overcome economic disparities, and home prices would have to fall to the point that these dwellings become affordable. | Read More