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发帖数: 43471 | 1 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/04/who-will-buy-baby-boomers-homes/
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Who Will Buy Baby Boomers' Homes?
MIMI KIRK APR 14, 2017
Years ago, housing experts predicted a housing crisis brought on by “the
great senior sell-off.” But the seniors aren’t selling—yet.
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A recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies forecasts
that the remodeling industry will remain robust over the next ten years. The
growth will be driven, as ever, by the Baby Boomer generation, 80 percent
of whom own homes, and two-thirds of whom have expressed a desire to “age
in place.” This means that many of them are modifying their living quarters
to include such “universal design” features as wider doors and hallways
to accommodate wheelchair use.
Boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—are a plentiful and relatively
affluent lot; they’ve steered economic trends for decades. But as the
oldest members of the generation amble into their 70s, housing analysts are
wondering who will take up the mantle of remodeling—and home ownership—
when they’re gone. Hopes are often pinned on the generation that last year
overtook Boomers as the country’s largest: Millennials.
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But Millennials are a big question mark. The generation, born between 1985
and 2004 according to Harvard’s Joint Center, has been slower to buy houses
than previous ones, including the smaller Generation X. This isn’t from a
lack of desire but of affordability, says Abbe Will, a co-author of the
report. That could change. “The oldest Millennials will be approaching
their mid-40s in another decade,” she says. “We’re looking at the next
ten years to see what will happen. Will this group catch up? We don’t know.”
It’s a dilemma that has preoccupied Arthur C. Nelson, a University of
Arizona professor who spoke with former CityLab staff writer Emily Badger in
2013 about what he dubbed “the great senior sell-off.” Nelson postulated
that Boomers would soon be selling their homes in droves, but would be hard-
pressed to find buyers—mainly because Millennials wouldn’t want to buy
them.
Nelson pointed to the affordability issue as well as the fact that about a
quarter of Millennials prefer urban housing, such as condos or townhouses,
over the detached suburban homes that were the Boomers’ preferred habitat.
Younger buyers, he said, will also be looking for starter homes—smaller
than the big Colonials and split-levels that line America’s cul-de-sacs. “
We can predict the next housing crash,” he said at the time. “That’ll be
in about 2020.”
Four years later, Nelson tells CityLab that that he believes the sell-off
will still occur—but later, in the mid- to late 2020s. This has to do with
people deciding to defer selling their homes, hoping to get a better price
later than settling for a lower price now. “Home values in much of the
country are still less than those before the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009
,” he says. Prior to the recession, the typical homeowner would sell a
house about every six years. “It was like clockwork,” says Nelson. “This
drove a lot of planning and development projections.”
“It’s not that Boomers are going to ‘age in place,’” says Nelson. “
They’re going to be stuck in place.”
Frequent sales put pressure on the market to produce homes catering to
changing tastes among buyers. Nelson notes that the home building industry
is now producing less than half the number of new houses it did in the mid-
2000s. Though demand now outpaces supply, homeowners are hanging on to
properties significantly longer—nine to ten years—because they owe more on
their houses than they can get for them, their houses are worth less than
before the recession, or they can’t find a home that meets their needs due
to insufficient supply.
“It’s not that Boomers are going to ‘age in place,’” says Nelson. “
They’re going to be stuck in place, and they’re going to make the best of
it.” Those who can afford it will remodel.
Regardless of when it occurs, the great senior sell-off won’t affect every
Boomer equally. A large chunk of Millennials—Nelson posits around two-
thirds—will want to buy suburban homes because they like the lifestyle, or
because they will be priced out of cities like Washington, D.C. or Los
Angeles, where housing costs are exorbitant. Most of the other third, he
says, will want to live in central cities and the oldest, closest suburbs—
though not necessarily downtown. The small percentage who prefer downtown
living but cannot afford certain cities may move to more affordable ones,
such as Philadelphia or Minneapolis.
Nelson predicts that the fringe areas surrounding cities will bring the
biggest headaches for Boomers looking to unload their houses. Because
Millennials will be looking for small homes when they finally start to buy
in larger numbers, the sprawling McMansions of the exurbs won’t be
desirable to many of them. “The Boomers in the exurbs are going to be in a
real pickle,” says Nelson. “Even in a dynamic market like Washington, D.C.
or other booming cities, the market for those homes is going to be soft.”
“The Boomers in the exurbs are going to be in a real pickle.”
Though Jennifer Molinsky, a senior research associate at Harvard’s Joint
Center for Housing Studies, agrees that exurbs and rural areas will likely
be vulnerable to the Boomer/Millennial housing mismatch, she’s not as
pessimistic about the sell-off as a whole.“The Baby Boomers are a large
generation,” she says. “Nothing they do is going to happen en masse.” She
also believes that the Boomers who don’t age in place will demand an
increasing array of housing options that will help spread out sales over
time, decreasing the likelihood of a sudden glut of housing.
But many analysts do agree on one thing: More housing will need to be built
for Millennials—and it needs to be scaled to their desires, not their
parents’s. “Millennials are likely to prioritize different features in
their homes, such as greener materials or in-law suites,” says Molinsky.
And according to the Harvard Joint Center’s projections, nearly 90 percent
of those looking for homes in 2035 will be under 35 or 70 and over—and both
groups tend to buy less square footage.
The challenge for local governments and developers, says Nelson, “is to
anticipate these future needs and build different and smaller homes now—
before getting trapped with too many larger homes later.” |
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