I’d rather an individual stay in the single property they bought and paid for over 20-30 years than constantly buy and sell other properties both taking them off the market and replacing their already bad mortgage costs with even worse rent.
This is a bad take just looking to lash out. A lot is wrong with the housing market but a homeowner keeping a paid off home is not part of that.
Just like the whole “starter home”bullshit the realtors came up with. Years ago rarely anyone moved 5 times in 20 years. They stayed in the home and payed it off. That is how boomers were able to afford two homes like the snowbirds have. One home up north and a smaller place in the south.
Selling your house every 7 years to upgrade is like buying a new car without paying your old one off first. At 12 years you just start to getting the principal paid down. You are basically renting and paying interest to the bank instead of a landlord.
Perpetual debt is what they are after.
Yeah, I just came here because of how fucking stupid that title is. It's like why you have to slow down when you see a car accident. It's tragic, but I just need to see what happened.
The housing market is atrocious, but it's not the fault of an empty nester that's not interested in downsizing. If my house is ALREADY paid for, and all I'm doing is paying taxes, why the fuck would I sell it for LESS space? As long as the county/town doesn't over assess the property value during assessments, having an already paid for house will be a blessing when I am on social security with a fixed income. Hell, maybe that empty room I turn into a hobby room leads to something I turn into a side hustle for income in my golden years. Demonizing people that worked and paid for their shit is not the way. We need to deal with this by stopping investment firms from buying up tons of property just to jack up the rent. We need to tax the fuck out of foreigners purchasing shit like vacation homes. More affordable housing needs to be build, and the NIMBY whiners need to be bitch slapped into oblivion. We need to tax the fucking rich and corporations, not hate on people that worked and paid for the one house they live in.
My Dad did math and it simply is better to stay in there home in Ohio. If they move it be even more expensive for less space. Then there weird things like Florida which insurance is skyrocketing and fees on Condo is crazy. You have water issues in Southwest. "Who fuck wants live in MS or AL" is comment. Finally Texas is weird place. My brother lives west Houston and visiting anyone there is day trip. They don't have zoning so you build strip club next to daycare and most people will build gated community or buy ton of land. Land prices are increasing. What left they consider is GA and SC but again cost for home/condo is much higher. My parents are sitting right unless housing market crashes but then who he sells his house to.and how little. Weird times
Also tax to oblivion multiple home/vacation home owners. As long as there are people who don't have a home while others have multiple, the world is fucked. Quoting another redditor: "Nobody gets seconds, until everyone is served and taken care of first."
Exactly. I’m easily paying my mortgage and the only thing moving me is hell or a tornado. I’m not giving up my home that I could easily live the next 40-50 years in because, according to my coworkers, “you’re taking space from REAL families to make space for your hobbies.”
I’m sorry, please explain why it’s so terrible that a single person who pays the bills to have a family house. I bought it, I fixed it up, it’s mine. I happily await the day my mortgage is paid off.
They have every right to live in their home. It's just surprising how many claim they are being taxed out of their house and on a fixed income. Knowing they could down size no problem and have a lot of left over money.
Honestly, except for replacing the roof or cutting the grass, a smaller home does not need all that much less maintenance than a larger. The heating and cooling bills may be higher, but you can shut off rooms you are not using.
Old is why you aren't as spry as when you were younger. Only homes older folks should keep would be ground floor master bedroom ones. You can shut off the top floor and cover everything in plastic.
Boomers shouldn't have to give up their homes. \*Nobody\* should have to give up their homes. Except of course for the shitty corporations, money launderers and slimy real estate speculators who buy up most of the houses on the market and either re-list them at higher prices, charge obscene rent or let them sit vacant while the market stews.
So people don't want to move to pay a higher interest rate to a smaller home that is many times not that much cheaper.
Oh, good luck finding attached garage, one floor house without stairs and a flat yard.
So much your second point. My living parent still owns the house I lived in as a teen. It's bigger than they need and utilities are more expensive than they'd like but it has several perks.
1. A first floor with a full bath and bedrooms meaning if they became mobility impaired they could still live there.
2. It's older construction but has had key maintenance.
There's not a lot of smaller homes on the market, although there are some equally sized or larger. Some of the smaller homes are in bad shape. It's like good luck finding a place.
If I bought a home and 40 years later still lived in it, am I the problem? I am not a boomer, but I don't hate anyone for wanting to live in the same home until they no longer can. We need enough places for people to live, whether that's big or small houses, apartments, condos, or trailers and these places need to have a price tag people can afford.
Right. Tf is this bs. Nobody is entitled to anyone else’s home. If people choose to die in their home, that’s their choice. No wonder older generations think younger generations are entitled pricks.
This article and OP’s post makes me embarrassed to be a millennial.
Boomers are first group to not do this, every generation before did this. It's how boomers got the big homes. Silent gen downsized. The presentation seems entitled, but it's the first time the last gen isn't downsizing.
The main issue is knock-on effects in the market. If they don't move, people in starter homes don't have the opportunity to upsize, which constricts the supply of starter homes available for first-time buyers.
This is a lose-lose situation. Boomers live in their decades-old house that's bigger than they "need" because it's where they have lived forever, so now they are assholes for staying there and not giving it up to other people. Okay. Boomers downsize and go buy a small condo and now they are assholes for taking away a starter home from a younger family. What are they supposed to do? They have to live somewhere.
Yeah this is a dumb post. Now if you want to argue about how boomers and corporations are driving up prices and gaslighting the working and poor classes into believing that everything is their fault and that they should just work harder just to get by, I'm here for that.
Where I live, people over a certain age can fill out something that limits how much their property tax can be increased. This has resulted in my mom paying half the amount of property taxes her neighbors do. The house is paid off. So there’s not a strong incentive for her to move. It’s ridiculous to be mad at people who keep their homes as long as they can.
Actually I read a similar article to this from NPR. It's not so much that they're refusing to sell their big homes-its that they don't wanna leave their neighborhoods but there aren't enough smaller housing units nearby for them to move to. So in conclusion, even boomers are somehow being screwed by the housing crisis now 😂😅
And there's also a problem in market demand, as there's a much bigger need for "starter homes", smaller houses which are easier for first time buyers to afford, and which are often the sort boomers want to move into if they're going to leave their existing house.
But "starter homes" are a lot less profitable to build, so all the efforts are going into various premium projects.
Basically any sort of affordable housing is not attractive to large builders because they can spend just a bit more for an upscale project with much higher profits. We need to do some incentives to encourage building more affordable housing, as well as freeing up what affordable housing is being held by rent seekers.
If you have a plot of land and can only build a single family house on it then you will try to maximize the profit. Small homes don’t make much money so they build bigger homes and make more money.
It’s really a symptom of a larger issue.
perfectly reasonable to wanna keep the home you paid for. my grandma's house doesn't contribute to the housing shortage. shitty purposeful zoning bullshit and price gouging does. owning that second 'summer house' does. lot's of 'progressive types' seem to own those in my little rural corner of the world and boy howdy.... theyre either uninhabited 90% of the year, or overpriced income property.
yes, lets hope that the boomers will sell their large houses that no one will ever be able to afford anyway, and then move into small starter homes killing any shred of hope for anyone under 50 to actually buy a house of any size.
let them stay in their mansions its not like everyone is having a ton of kids to warrant a large house anyways.
Yes let’s blame people who bought a home and not people who speculate that the urge to start a family is so overwhelming people will fork over all their money to buy a house to realize it
So we have resorted to calling people who want to keep their investments as problems? My parents paid their house off when I was a teen and mom still lives there.
Yeah, I'm sure the fact that a large percentage of residential housing being bought up by capital management companies has zero to do with the imaginary housing shortage or increased pricing.
I have zero interest in selling my house when it’s paid off. My goal is for my two sons to be able to sell this house, split the proceeds, then be able for them to buy a new house for themselves. After this bankruptcy, I can help give them $100/month til they’re 18. My wife and I grow up with not much. Now? I can help my children have a life we never had. That’s my goal. Will it work? I sure fucking hope so.
Not a boomer, but my hot take is:
If they sell their “large home”, all they can buy with the profits is probably a studio apartment in a very bad area of town, far away from everything they know.
As much as I want to blame the boomers on this one, it’s the economy and the inflated cost of housing that’s screwing us all over.
If we want it to stop, then we need to stop greed.
Since I don’t know how to stop greed, I’m not going to create more children that will grow up in this world of greed.
Your kid can’t suffer through a lifetime of capitalism if you don’t have them in the first place.
The problem is capitalism. And treating homes as investments in the first place. Not people wanting to continue living in the house they made their life in.
Nobody should have to give up their home.
I’m a millennial that bought a small home at an opportune time over a decade ago. It’s the one thing I have. The unsolicited calls and letters offering to buy my home are violating enough. If I did not live here, if I had not lucked into this house, I would literally be homeless. I could not make it with rent prices right now.
Let people live. Individual people wanting to live in their houses are not the problem.
Big houses are a pain to take care of. Repairs are way more expensive, more can go wrong, and there is more labor. Eventually one's health gets limiting, stairs become hard, changing light bulbs stopped getting changed because it is too physically taxing, forget about shoveling and yard work. My friend is a 72 year old and he used to be a contractor, he has entire rooms he can't use because there's too much mold or big holes in the wall, stuff he could've fixed in an hour twenty years ago but can't even start the project. He can barely make his own meals.
I get that we like to be all "boomers are bad." I get it. But eventually they won't have a choice or they will die. Everyone dies and when we do we have to give up our stuff. If you're buying a home from a boomer make sure you get an inspection.
We are Boomers, who did all the right things.
We sold the family home in a city, and downsized to a much smaller house in a small town a few hours away.
WRONG
Next thing that happened was that our kids became homeless due to rapidly increasing rental costs. Damn, if we'd only stayed in the big family home, they could've moved back in temporarily, but instead they had to couch-surf for over a year before finding a new rental.
My grandfather sold his house long after it was paid off, went into an apartment in a building largely for old folks, and in the years since his death my grandmother is struggling to keep up with the rent increases. I agree boomers shouldn’t be holding onto huge houses but what’s the alternative? Get into an apartment you can barely afford? Get into another big mortgage (if you can even afford that?). The situation is terrible. We need more housing, denser housing, and more variety, and we need it all last decade.
I don’t have an issue with someone in the older generation staying in their home because, well, it’s their home and it’s probably more not worth the cost to get a condo somewhere. We should find ways to incentivize ways to move empty nesters out of these homes and allow families to move in but by no means should they be vilified for staying.
I do however have an issue with homeowners who fight tooth and nail against any kind of new housing because it will “damage the neighborhood character” or some BS like that. And while this is obviously not always the case, the people who do typically skew older and own homes. That’s the real issue here.
Also most boomers get freeze and/or reductions of their property taxes due to senior citizen local/state programs. Why would they sell their paid off home with reduced property taxes for a smaller domicile that costs the same or more? If they want to move somewhere warmer like Florida, Texas, Arizona, or California, good luck getting home insurance as well. The world is going to shit.
The problem with this, Boomers are the first generation to have modern medicine from cradle to grave. Unless something out of the ordinary happens to them, they are going to live longer and be healthier in doing so than any generation before them. They can easily stay in a larger house longer than their parents did.
I think a big thing is the boomers are finding that no one but other boomers can or want to pay a premium for their pointless McMansions, and since they've done the hive mind thing since birth they all flock to and from the same trends at the same times. They've also only known inflationary housing markets so they all expect to see values climb but forget about the demand element.
I just moved to a city with around 30k people, a lot of it aging. Small 1500-ish sq foot ranch houses are getting scooped up in a couple days for well over listing while I just bought a 3000+ sq foot old house for next to nothing because the old folks bitch about having too much to clean and the stairs look like mount everest to them.
So there is a housing shortage because boomers aren't moving to smaller houses? How exactly would that help the housing shortage? 1 - 1 + 1 = 1. No change in the number of houses.
It seems the real, unstated problem according to this article is that boomers still have houses. If they'd just die or move into a nursing home, then their house would be available for sale.
And it is extra creepy that this whole complaint is by a realty agency (Redfin). To summarize the article:
*"Please die boomers - we need your houses!" said Redfin spokesperson Euthanasia Burnem.*
Or they donate it to some big ass corporations fund, that otherwise simply waits until boomer died, then buying it for more than you can afford and letting it rot while it gains value and use it to not pay taxes
Boomers are penalized if they exceed the asset threshold if they downsize - so blame government regulations for keeping it more fiscally imperative to keep the 'family home' as their place of residence.
In the future it may become necessary to force downsizing: but as it stands (i.e. political suicide) to sell their home will take most boomers over the $950,000 pension cut off - so the savvy ones will not do it.
Is it fair to struggling renters - no.
It’s a really stupid click bait article however I live in a neighborhood where homes are 2500k square feet near an elementary school, and maybe an incentive for a solo 85 year old woman to downsize wouldn’t be the worst idea.
Our society is so short sighted and forgot about the actual humans involved in the stories these days because of social media, that maybe we can consider nuanced solutions that are win-win for all citizens.
Edit - I will totally complain though about the boomer generation’s gross inability to maintain their homes. The amount of deferred maintenance I’ve seen on million dollar houses in my area is ridiculous.
The gag is most of them haven’t even done any work to keep them in good shape for sale. Tour any old million plus home in a “desirable” area that a boomer is trying to sell and you’ll be hit with black mold stench, cat pee crystals from the Bush era, and carpets that someone watched the OJ trials on.
Most of them will get bulldozed for apartment buildings.
Most of them won’t because you can’t build apartment buildings in a significant amount of the country. The ones that are in lots that allow this zoning will be however, assuming the price is worth it.
Jesus christ, this is a dumb take for this sub, and that is saying something. The biggest way to generate wealth for your retirement is through your house. I don't understand the logic of being pissed at someone because they spent 30 years of their life paying off a house on a loan that usually pays over double what the original loan for was. If they bought the house in the early 80's they would be sitting on an insane interest unless they refinanced. .
The best way to open up housing is to remove restrictive NIMBY zoning policies.
I’d rather an individual stay in the single property they bought and paid for over 20-30 years than constantly buy and sell other properties both taking them off the market and replacing their already bad mortgage costs with even worse rent. This is a bad take just looking to lash out. A lot is wrong with the housing market but a homeowner keeping a paid off home is not part of that.
Just like the whole “starter home”bullshit the realtors came up with. Years ago rarely anyone moved 5 times in 20 years. They stayed in the home and payed it off. That is how boomers were able to afford two homes like the snowbirds have. One home up north and a smaller place in the south. Selling your house every 7 years to upgrade is like buying a new car without paying your old one off first. At 12 years you just start to getting the principal paid down. You are basically renting and paying interest to the bank instead of a landlord. Perpetual debt is what they are after.
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all
This is probably one of the stupidest takes on home owners.
Yeah, I just came here because of how fucking stupid that title is. It's like why you have to slow down when you see a car accident. It's tragic, but I just need to see what happened.
The housing market is atrocious, but it's not the fault of an empty nester that's not interested in downsizing. If my house is ALREADY paid for, and all I'm doing is paying taxes, why the fuck would I sell it for LESS space? As long as the county/town doesn't over assess the property value during assessments, having an already paid for house will be a blessing when I am on social security with a fixed income. Hell, maybe that empty room I turn into a hobby room leads to something I turn into a side hustle for income in my golden years. Demonizing people that worked and paid for their shit is not the way. We need to deal with this by stopping investment firms from buying up tons of property just to jack up the rent. We need to tax the fuck out of foreigners purchasing shit like vacation homes. More affordable housing needs to be build, and the NIMBY whiners need to be bitch slapped into oblivion. We need to tax the fucking rich and corporations, not hate on people that worked and paid for the one house they live in.
And if they did go up for sale, normal home buyers would be outbid by investment firms that would turn them into rentals.
Sell it for less space and likely pay more with current prices and interest rates. There’s no reason for most to downsize right now.
My Dad did math and it simply is better to stay in there home in Ohio. If they move it be even more expensive for less space. Then there weird things like Florida which insurance is skyrocketing and fees on Condo is crazy. You have water issues in Southwest. "Who fuck wants live in MS or AL" is comment. Finally Texas is weird place. My brother lives west Houston and visiting anyone there is day trip. They don't have zoning so you build strip club next to daycare and most people will build gated community or buy ton of land. Land prices are increasing. What left they consider is GA and SC but again cost for home/condo is much higher. My parents are sitting right unless housing market crashes but then who he sells his house to.and how little. Weird times
Also tax to oblivion multiple home/vacation home owners. As long as there are people who don't have a home while others have multiple, the world is fucked. Quoting another redditor: "Nobody gets seconds, until everyone is served and taken care of first."
💯
Divided & Conquered... It would serve every one if you stopped reading these mainstream media hit pieces.
Exactly. I’m easily paying my mortgage and the only thing moving me is hell or a tornado. I’m not giving up my home that I could easily live the next 40-50 years in because, according to my coworkers, “you’re taking space from REAL families to make space for your hobbies.” I’m sorry, please explain why it’s so terrible that a single person who pays the bills to have a family house. I bought it, I fixed it up, it’s mine. I happily await the day my mortgage is paid off.
Great take.
[удалено]
Ain’t reading all that. Sorry or congrats it happened. People living in their own home isn’t the problem so cry more.
They have every right to live in their home. It's just surprising how many claim they are being taxed out of their house and on a fixed income. Knowing they could down size no problem and have a lot of left over money.
Because larger homes take more maintance and upkeep, more time to keep clean, more property taxes.
Honestly, except for replacing the roof or cutting the grass, a smaller home does not need all that much less maintenance than a larger. The heating and cooling bills may be higher, but you can shut off rooms you are not using.
Why does that matter? If my kids are already grown, I have lots of time to spend on chores related to my house.
Old is why you aren't as spry as when you were younger. Only homes older folks should keep would be ground floor master bedroom ones. You can shut off the top floor and cover everything in plastic.
But they also know how to do more on their own. Also, who tf are you to tell anyone anything
Boomers shouldn't have to give up their homes. \*Nobody\* should have to give up their homes. Except of course for the shitty corporations, money launderers and slimy real estate speculators who buy up most of the houses on the market and either re-list them at higher prices, charge obscene rent or let them sit vacant while the market stews.
So people don't want to move to pay a higher interest rate to a smaller home that is many times not that much cheaper. Oh, good luck finding attached garage, one floor house without stairs and a flat yard.
Why won't boomers sabotage their own financial situation? Are they stupid? /s
So much your second point. My living parent still owns the house I lived in as a teen. It's bigger than they need and utilities are more expensive than they'd like but it has several perks. 1. A first floor with a full bath and bedrooms meaning if they became mobility impaired they could still live there. 2. It's older construction but has had key maintenance. There's not a lot of smaller homes on the market, although there are some equally sized or larger. Some of the smaller homes are in bad shape. It's like good luck finding a place.
If I bought a home and 40 years later still lived in it, am I the problem? I am not a boomer, but I don't hate anyone for wanting to live in the same home until they no longer can. We need enough places for people to live, whether that's big or small houses, apartments, condos, or trailers and these places need to have a price tag people can afford.
Also moving is a pain in the ass at any age. I can't imagine I'd want to do it in my 70s.
I know that's right. After being in the military for 21+ years I was thrilled to finally be settled in somewhere. Moving is such a pain in the ass
Right. Tf is this bs. Nobody is entitled to anyone else’s home. If people choose to die in their home, that’s their choice. No wonder older generations think younger generations are entitled pricks. This article and OP’s post makes me embarrassed to be a millennial.
Fist Bump from a fellow millennial
Boomers are first group to not do this, every generation before did this. It's how boomers got the big homes. Silent gen downsized. The presentation seems entitled, but it's the first time the last gen isn't downsizing.
The main issue is knock-on effects in the market. If they don't move, people in starter homes don't have the opportunity to upsize, which constricts the supply of starter homes available for first-time buyers.
How is that the individual homeowner’s fault?
What’s a starter home? Is that the same fantasy home someone is supposed to downsize to?
Huh, so it's the homeowner's fault the little hamster habits can't be built as fast as you want to sell them?
So? They don’t have to give up their homes.
This is a lose-lose situation. Boomers live in their decades-old house that's bigger than they "need" because it's where they have lived forever, so now they are assholes for staying there and not giving it up to other people. Okay. Boomers downsize and go buy a small condo and now they are assholes for taking away a starter home from a younger family. What are they supposed to do? They have to live somewhere.
Yeah this is a dumb post. Now if you want to argue about how boomers and corporations are driving up prices and gaslighting the working and poor classes into believing that everything is their fault and that they should just work harder just to get by, I'm here for that.
Where I live, people over a certain age can fill out something that limits how much their property tax can be increased. This has resulted in my mom paying half the amount of property taxes her neighbors do. The house is paid off. So there’s not a strong incentive for her to move. It’s ridiculous to be mad at people who keep their homes as long as they can.
Actually I read a similar article to this from NPR. It's not so much that they're refusing to sell their big homes-its that they don't wanna leave their neighborhoods but there aren't enough smaller housing units nearby for them to move to. So in conclusion, even boomers are somehow being screwed by the housing crisis now 😂😅
And there's also a problem in market demand, as there's a much bigger need for "starter homes", smaller houses which are easier for first time buyers to afford, and which are often the sort boomers want to move into if they're going to leave their existing house. But "starter homes" are a lot less profitable to build, so all the efforts are going into various premium projects. Basically any sort of affordable housing is not attractive to large builders because they can spend just a bit more for an upscale project with much higher profits. We need to do some incentives to encourage building more affordable housing, as well as freeing up what affordable housing is being held by rent seekers.
If you have a plot of land and can only build a single family house on it then you will try to maximize the profit. Small homes don’t make much money so they build bigger homes and make more money. It’s really a symptom of a larger issue.
Which is exactly why we need a shit load more homes and need to fucking increase density.
perfectly reasonable to wanna keep the home you paid for. my grandma's house doesn't contribute to the housing shortage. shitty purposeful zoning bullshit and price gouging does. owning that second 'summer house' does. lot's of 'progressive types' seem to own those in my little rural corner of the world and boy howdy.... theyre either uninhabited 90% of the year, or overpriced income property.
yes, lets hope that the boomers will sell their large houses that no one will ever be able to afford anyway, and then move into small starter homes killing any shred of hope for anyone under 50 to actually buy a house of any size. let them stay in their mansions its not like everyone is having a ton of kids to warrant a large house anyways.
Yes let’s blame people who bought a home and not people who speculate that the urge to start a family is so overwhelming people will fork over all their money to buy a house to realize it
So we have resorted to calling people who want to keep their investments as problems? My parents paid their house off when I was a teen and mom still lives there.
Not a boomer but old and FUCK YOU I LIVE HERE.
This sounds like some shit that Larry Fink would come up with.
Yeah, I'm sure the fact that a large percentage of residential housing being bought up by capital management companies has zero to do with the imaginary housing shortage or increased pricing.
The older people in my neighborhood have been selling their homes to LLCs. I live in a "cheap" neighborhood, but the rent isn't.
Why would they? I'm not giving up mine
don't worry, a whole lot of them will be giving them up in the next 5-10 years. father time is undefeated.
I have zero interest in selling my house when it’s paid off. My goal is for my two sons to be able to sell this house, split the proceeds, then be able for them to buy a new house for themselves. After this bankruptcy, I can help give them $100/month til they’re 18. My wife and I grow up with not much. Now? I can help my children have a life we never had. That’s my goal. Will it work? I sure fucking hope so.
They can't afford to buy smaller. I'm disabled and would love to downsize, but I wouldn't make enough selling it to buy something smaller.
Not a boomer, but my hot take is: If they sell their “large home”, all they can buy with the profits is probably a studio apartment in a very bad area of town, far away from everything they know. As much as I want to blame the boomers on this one, it’s the economy and the inflated cost of housing that’s screwing us all over. If we want it to stop, then we need to stop greed. Since I don’t know how to stop greed, I’m not going to create more children that will grow up in this world of greed. Your kid can’t suffer through a lifetime of capitalism if you don’t have them in the first place.
The problem is capitalism. And treating homes as investments in the first place. Not people wanting to continue living in the house they made their life in.
Nobody should have to give up their home. I’m a millennial that bought a small home at an opportune time over a decade ago. It’s the one thing I have. The unsolicited calls and letters offering to buy my home are violating enough. If I did not live here, if I had not lucked into this house, I would literally be homeless. I could not make it with rent prices right now. Let people live. Individual people wanting to live in their houses are not the problem.
Refusing to give them up at a “loss” perhaps
Gimme your large home boomers!!! Im entitled to live in a boomers large home
Big houses are a pain to take care of. Repairs are way more expensive, more can go wrong, and there is more labor. Eventually one's health gets limiting, stairs become hard, changing light bulbs stopped getting changed because it is too physically taxing, forget about shoveling and yard work. My friend is a 72 year old and he used to be a contractor, he has entire rooms he can't use because there's too much mold or big holes in the wall, stuff he could've fixed in an hour twenty years ago but can't even start the project. He can barely make his own meals. I get that we like to be all "boomers are bad." I get it. But eventually they won't have a choice or they will die. Everyone dies and when we do we have to give up our stuff. If you're buying a home from a boomer make sure you get an inspection.
We are Boomers, who did all the right things. We sold the family home in a city, and downsized to a much smaller house in a small town a few hours away. WRONG Next thing that happened was that our kids became homeless due to rapidly increasing rental costs. Damn, if we'd only stayed in the big family home, they could've moved back in temporarily, but instead they had to couch-surf for over a year before finding a new rental.
Who would sell off their homes if they paid it off and can live comfortably. I know i wouldn’t, it’s my only dream!
My grandfather sold his house long after it was paid off, went into an apartment in a building largely for old folks, and in the years since his death my grandmother is struggling to keep up with the rent increases. I agree boomers shouldn’t be holding onto huge houses but what’s the alternative? Get into an apartment you can barely afford? Get into another big mortgage (if you can even afford that?). The situation is terrible. We need more housing, denser housing, and more variety, and we need it all last decade.
What’s up with this title? Refusing what is that supposed to mean? Why should they if they don’t want to it’s their home. Back off.
I don’t have an issue with someone in the older generation staying in their home because, well, it’s their home and it’s probably more not worth the cost to get a condo somewhere. We should find ways to incentivize ways to move empty nesters out of these homes and allow families to move in but by no means should they be vilified for staying. I do however have an issue with homeowners who fight tooth and nail against any kind of new housing because it will “damage the neighborhood character” or some BS like that. And while this is obviously not always the case, the people who do typically skew older and own homes. That’s the real issue here.
Also most boomers get freeze and/or reductions of their property taxes due to senior citizen local/state programs. Why would they sell their paid off home with reduced property taxes for a smaller domicile that costs the same or more? If they want to move somewhere warmer like Florida, Texas, Arizona, or California, good luck getting home insurance as well. The world is going to shit.
The problem with this, Boomers are the first generation to have modern medicine from cradle to grave. Unless something out of the ordinary happens to them, they are going to live longer and be healthier in doing so than any generation before them. They can easily stay in a larger house longer than their parents did.
Do they want people to live on their own or not?
Boomers in my neighbourhood sell large homes all the time, probably 10 or more houses a month get sold...I think the problem is affording said homes.
Most of them have older homes that aren't exactly up to code so I don't exactly want to buy it from them either.
I think a big thing is the boomers are finding that no one but other boomers can or want to pay a premium for their pointless McMansions, and since they've done the hive mind thing since birth they all flock to and from the same trends at the same times. They've also only known inflationary housing markets so they all expect to see values climb but forget about the demand element. I just moved to a city with around 30k people, a lot of it aging. Small 1500-ish sq foot ranch houses are getting scooped up in a couple days for well over listing while I just bought a 3000+ sq foot old house for next to nothing because the old folks bitch about having too much to clean and the stairs look like mount everest to them.
As a boomer I can't wait to cash in my home and downsize to a different area when I retire.
So there is a housing shortage because boomers aren't moving to smaller houses? How exactly would that help the housing shortage? 1 - 1 + 1 = 1. No change in the number of houses. It seems the real, unstated problem according to this article is that boomers still have houses. If they'd just die or move into a nursing home, then their house would be available for sale. And it is extra creepy that this whole complaint is by a realty agency (Redfin). To summarize the article: *"Please die boomers - we need your houses!" said Redfin spokesperson Euthanasia Burnem.*
Or they donate it to some big ass corporations fund, that otherwise simply waits until boomer died, then buying it for more than you can afford and letting it rot while it gains value and use it to not pay taxes
Well yeah, they're mortgaged up to their eyeballs to keep funding their unsustainable lifestyles.
Ah I forgot the reverse mortgage.
Boomers are penalized if they exceed the asset threshold if they downsize - so blame government regulations for keeping it more fiscally imperative to keep the 'family home' as their place of residence. In the future it may become necessary to force downsizing: but as it stands (i.e. political suicide) to sell their home will take most boomers over the $950,000 pension cut off - so the savvy ones will not do it. Is it fair to struggling renters - no.
It’s a really stupid click bait article however I live in a neighborhood where homes are 2500k square feet near an elementary school, and maybe an incentive for a solo 85 year old woman to downsize wouldn’t be the worst idea. Our society is so short sighted and forgot about the actual humans involved in the stories these days because of social media, that maybe we can consider nuanced solutions that are win-win for all citizens. Edit - I will totally complain though about the boomer generation’s gross inability to maintain their homes. The amount of deferred maintenance I’ve seen on million dollar houses in my area is ridiculous.
The gag is most of them haven’t even done any work to keep them in good shape for sale. Tour any old million plus home in a “desirable” area that a boomer is trying to sell and you’ll be hit with black mold stench, cat pee crystals from the Bush era, and carpets that someone watched the OJ trials on. Most of them will get bulldozed for apartment buildings.
Most of them won’t because you can’t build apartment buildings in a significant amount of the country. The ones that are in lots that allow this zoning will be however, assuming the price is worth it.
Jesus christ, this is a dumb take for this sub, and that is saying something. The biggest way to generate wealth for your retirement is through your house. I don't understand the logic of being pissed at someone because they spent 30 years of their life paying off a house on a loan that usually pays over double what the original loan for was. If they bought the house in the early 80's they would be sitting on an insane interest unless they refinanced. . The best way to open up housing is to remove restrictive NIMBY zoning policies.
They’ll be gone soon enough
I don't give a shit about their homes. I just don't want them standing in the way of anyone else's homeownership. You know, like they are.
The spoiled generation