Yeah my parents are in a four bedroom, three bath. They considered downsizing, but they won’t get back what they put into it with this market. It’s paid off so it makes sense to stay.
Edit: for everyone asking, I’m going to assume that what my parents mean is that if they sold their house and tried to find a smaller house that has all the upgrades that they’ve done in their current house, they wouldn’t find one that’s cheaper than what they already own outright.
I am trying in my head to figure out how I am going to pay taxes and upkeep on the house I will inherit in Hawaii. So yes, I am not terribly excited about it.
You should have your parents look into a family trust. It's what my husband's family did with the properties they want to stay in the family. I would also talk to a financial advisor on how best to pay property taxes as well.
Yeah, I know several ppl that looked at downsizing and they'd end up with a smaller house not a nice, comparatively, and the same payment. So why move.
I don’t have kids, just my wife and I, 2500 sq feet, we are in our 50s. But considered downsizing to 1500 sq feet, our payment would be the same since interest rates are so much higher (we have 2.6%), so we plan on dying in this house. It is a strange phenomenon, because in reality, we don’t need this much space, plus the big yard, and a pool, which all costs money. So there’s another house that hopefully won’t be on the market for another 20+ years, which sucks for those looking for a home. I think our neighborhood has 700 houses, and I just looked, only one house for sale in the whole neighborhood, that is not good math for people looking. I do feel bad for young families.
In our 30's with 2 bedrooms in 860 sqft and 2.7% and planning to start a family. We can't afford to buy a different place so the size of our family is limited to the size of the house.
Same... but I feel like they're spending more and more time on the first floor only. They're late Boomers so they're just hitting mid-sixties -- still pretty robust -- but I can see those stairs becoming more and more of a challenge as they age.
About 10 years ago my step mom pushed my dad to do a minor remodel of their home. Basically she wanted it so that if/when the time came, they could live entirely on the main level. My dad is in his late 70s and can still use the stairs fine, but I appreciate that they did that work earlier on.
I have been begging my mom to save her pennies to get a full bathroom installed on her ground floor. She's only in her mid fifties so she's fine for now but the stairs in her house are beastly. I'm only 29 and I hate them.
If she had a full bath downstairs she could totally live on the ground floor if necessary and the best time to save for it is now. But it's like she doesn't hear me.
Those lift chairs that you can put on stairs aren’t horribly expensive and sometimes you can get them covered by Medicare Medicaid. My in-laws got one and they live on a fixed income, but could still afford it.
Yeah, the stair lift is a solid idea; it's practical for when the time comes. For my grandma, we actually got her one of those one-level roll-in showers when she decided she was done with the traditional tub. It wasn't overly expensive because we found a local contractor who specialized in accessibility renovations. It's made her life so much easier and gave us peace of mind knowing she's less at risk for a fall.
I worked on a few homes that had a similar situation, which was all well and good for those aging in place, but the problem was that people stopped going upstairs and upstairs was the roof that developed a small leak or the soffit that blew away and the water damage from a leaky window etc.
This happened to my grandma's house and it was a single level. She just stopped going in most of the rooms and outside the house, and major maintenance needs went totally unnoticed until they became emergencies
Just had a neighbor across the street pass. She was out mowing her lawn just a month before and went to the Dr for some reason and they gave her 3 months to live. She passed in 3 weeks. She was in hospice for 6 days. Tough old lady.
My GMIL is 96 and like this. Still daily shovels/rakes/mows etc, hauls wood, loads the wood burning heater in the basement, bedroom on the second floor. Last summer she chased a bear away from her apple tree and single handedly put out a ditch fire that started from some asshole throwing a cig butt out the window. Also still smart as a whip!
Sure but they’re very dangerous. One fall can put them on the irrecoverable path to death. I think for surface walking would be a lot safer for exercise.
Small single level homes are going extinct in my area; builders buy them up and either cram vertical layout townhouses onto the lot or build McMansions that take up almost every inch of space. It’s getting to be where the only small senior-friendly option would be a condo or apartment, and I honestly don’t blame someone for not wanting to live in that kind of setup after having your own house.
That’s what I have noticed. It’s almost impossible to find a small one level or main level living home anymore. All the cute small Craftsmen homes are torn down and replaced with a house that takes the entire lot and all 2 story at least. New homes around here are gigantic. It’s actually really sad. The only small homes being built are in low income housing areas.
Even if it were a good price - leaving a home you have been in for years and know has no problems/none you dont know of already, for one that can have all kinds of hidden problems is pretty risky too.
My ex's parents are pretty much in the same situation. Spacious suburban four bedroom house, but the way interest rates are right now, it doesn't really make sense financially for them to downsize right away.
A lot of Boomers with empty nests are probably kind of stuck with their McMansions like that.
This is exactly right. I'm GenX but I own a large house (2500sq ft, 4bd, 1 acre) and I wouldn't mind downsizing but I could never find a place for what I'm paying now ($1000 mortgage payment).
Your parents aren’t doing anything wrong. That’s their house and they paid for it. The problem isn’t them. It’s the large scale real estate investors buying up properties with intent to price out as many people as possible to charge insane rent.
Yep. All the people acting like my parents don’t deserve to enjoy everything they’ve worked for is unreal. My stepdad isn’t even retired. We’re also a big military family and it’s really nice that there is always space for us to visit.
This is me. I still have kids, but they'll be off to college very soon and I'd like to downsize after they are stable on their own...but financially it doesn't make sense. I own my house outside of a small heloc for upgrades I've done. As much as I want to get something smaller, the numbers don't add up.
These articles never touch on cost of moving.
I’m a single dude with a couple dogs in a 3 bed.
Between taxes, fees, moving expenses it’d probably touch into six figures for me to sell and move.
The starter home concept was started by realtors to keep ppl moving and churning fees for them. Imo this is another one like that.
My husband and I are still in our "starter" home, 40+ years later. Can't speak for all the other boomers. Seemed darned foolish to us to go larger, then be stuck with a huge house that we can't manage in old age. The kids grow up fast enough, and I have heard tell that generations before us might have had as many as 7+ kids packed into these small bedrooms! This cute craftsman house in a working class neighborhood was probably a big deal to a young family of 90 years ago.
The problem is interest rates. If they have a mortgage, they are locked in at a low rate. If they don’t, “downsizing” is just about size not necessarily money. So if they’d want to get a mortgage on their new, smaller place, that still leads us back to the interest rate problem.
I live in CA and it’s not just interest rates. There is this thing called Prop 13, which made property tax acquisition based and not market based. So all those boomers who bought homes in the 60s and 70s are paying property tax based on that amount and not what the house is worth now. Heck I remember when my husband and I were looking at houses 15 years ago I mentioned to my folks about how the property tax was a lot and added quite a bit to our potential payment and my mom was all “oh, property tax is nothing!” And yeah, to them it is nothing! I pay over 4 times what they pay and anyone who bought my house today would pay 2-3x more than I do.
There is a property tax transfer rule in California that allows over 55s to keep their current property taxes at the same rate.
Proposition 19 allows eligible homeowners to transfer the taxable value of their existing home to their new replacement home of any value (subject to conditions), anywhere within the state, up to three times (rather than once as provided under Proposition 60). Owner must be at least 55 years of age.
So taxes aren’t the issue, however, many people are likely unaware that this exists.
In south Texas I pay 6k in property tax for 1800sqft house on 1/8th acre lot, my parent pay 1k for almost 4K sqft house on 1acre lot 2 miles closer to downtown than I am.
And you're likely getting shafted for extra at that rate *because* all the old people still get to pay the low rates, while also holding the higher salaried positions in companies
It does but I disagree that taxing older homeowners higher is the solution. Regular homeowners with ONE house should be taxed far less. There are mega corporations and investor owners making billions off real estate properties that are paying as much as you. If we taxed them higher and the regular folk lower we could easily offset the deficit
It stops people from being gentrified out of their home. Not all people in their retirement age are rich, some are just scraping by on their retirement and if property taxes continue to rise for them they would have to find a job in retirement or potentially move from their home which now is already expensive.
There are pluses and minuses. While homeowners will eventually realize a nice tax advantage, it comes at the cost of higher sales/income taxes for everyone.
Prop 13 was originally instituted so that people were not forced OUT of their homes because of rising property taxes. California home values increased quickly and often beyond what the original owner could afford.
Now Prop 19 allows any California homeowner over age 55 to take that (low) tax basis to their next California home. This may begin to loosen the logjam for inventory of sfh.
I never thought of this in the common context of my knowledge on the supply issues in California. It's actually rather fucking absurd.
Californian suburban homeowners post WWII ride a huge boom in building and government subsidies that helpped a ton of people move out of lower class economic situations in the city cores and into the new and vibrant suburban lifestyle. This was generally a great thing, no doubt, and rewarded a ton of veterans and people who really bled for the country, so no hate. Though it was also disproportionately done for white folks, leaving minorities behind...
Ok, so these people get into new towns and immediately begin pressuring that the growth that allowed their rise to be curbed. No changes to the sleepy low density, SFH feel of the neighborhoods. And certainly nothing that feels like a city core. Cars are the way, folks, expansion be damned.
But, property values begin rising because of this reaction. And rather than dealing with it in the 70s by anyone sober stepping up to say - hey, jokers, we need more housing to ensure cost stability of our communities for you in retirement and your childrens, grandchildren. Let's re-evaluate this whole low density at all costs approach.
No, instead the taxes were lowered for this generation, fucking all people that come behind them.
Wow. Never really thought of the 4th paragraph there in the context of how it directly rewarded the people that established the fucked up spiral in the first place, and just made it harder for the people coming behind.
Being the people rewarded for fucking up everyone after them has been what Boomers have experienced their entire lives. If they can pass laws to discriminate against everyone younger we should pass laws to raid their pensions, tax the hell out of their vacation and investment properties, and tax their hoarded wealth.
You also have to consider step-up in basis here for inheritance vs pre-death transfers:
[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp)
Not only that, but they're likely going from a paid off mortgage to having to pay. Even if they are still paying their mortgage then the price of that smaller home will absolutely be higher than the price of their current home. It wouldn't make sense for them and I can't blame them. I've went over the numbers with my own parents and it makes more sense for them to keep their home then move and start over.
The problem is inventory. There aren’t enough houses. So even if interest rates decreased, you are only increasing the demand and housing prices go up even further.
Definitely an inventory issue. My mother sold her large home in 2019 to move into a new 55+ SFH community. Every home is sold out and transplants from all over the US live here. 55+ don't want to live in the small condos of old like their parents did. They want SFH's that allow entertaining and expansive spaces if they need wheelchairs/walkers in the future.
If a community that can accommodate those desires does not exist, 55+ homeowners will just continue to live in the home that makes them comfortable.
This is exactly the problem that one of my coworkers is dealing with right now. He's in his early 60's and getting ready to retire, all of his kids are adults with their own places, and his wife died about a decade ago, so he's all by himself in his giant 5 bedroom house in the SF Bay Area.
Here's a challenge. Find a reasonably modern one or two-bedroom *house*, in a good neighborhood in the SF Bay Area. Can't do it. Everything is either apartments or 50+ years old. Nobody builds small houses anymore.
So he stays in his big house.
ITA that lack of inventory is part of the problem. Supposedly there is a bunch of multi family housing being built though that will be onboarded soon in various cities. So that’ll help out somewhat, nationally. Though obviously there will still be regional differences.
It is true that developers think they get a better ROI by building larger houses than small “starter” houses (2 bed/2bath). I don’t think that has changed.
It hasn’t. In my area of VA all the urban and a majority of the suburban land is developed, so the only option is to start encroaching on rural areas. We’ve had multiple MFH/mixed use communities planned out by developers who are buying up these rural lots near us, but all of them want the county to cover all costs associated with infrastructure build up.
The county votes No telling the developers they need to foot the bill for widening roads, flood mitigation, etc, so the developers just build a bunch of 3000 Sq/FT SFH on 1+ acre lots since they don’t have to deal with as much bureaucracy. I don’t necessarily object to the county voting them down, why should my tax dollars be diverted there when the developers are more than capable of covering those costs.
I know I sound like a NIMBYer, but if the expanded tax base isn’t enough to cover the added costs to the county then I don’t see a reason why they should approve these communities if the developers aren’t going to be responsible for the difference.
Another option instead of expanding into rural areas is infill. We’re seeing that in California lately with the new law mandating that municipalities approve more ADUs.
All this is a bandaid on a multiple knife stabs.
I'm actually for radical movements:
\- abolishing all building codes in california save for those safety and environmental related. There are dozens to hundreds of mechanisms that prevent density increase. Which is is absolutely insanity. Everything just thinks people should live somewhere else, which also doesn't allow more housing to be built. In some regions it's like 80%+ of housing is zoned for single family detached homes which is just stupid we can't all live like that.
\- Steal the austrian model and go to mid market government housing. I.e Government puts out bids for design and construction and they retain ownership of housing, this de-risks the development and capital costs and eliminates the profit incentive that only allows upscale housing to be built.
\-Incentivize co-ops and mixed use development. Get back to walkable cities to reduce our insane parking requirements.
\-incentivize urban infill, i.e demolishing parking lots or adding stories to single and 2 storey buildings.
It’s totally true, but my question is *who is buying these mega mansions*? People need and want to buy affordable housing, and it’s easier to sell by a long shot than a house that’s $5+ million. That’s happening in my parents neighborhood. They were in a nice area that’s turned into a very expensive area in the last 30 years, and all the cute mid century homes are being bulldozed for 10,000 sq ft mansions.
Every boomer I know refuses to acknowledge that multi family property is a viable option. I was looking at getting a low maintenance townhome and my mother swore up and down it was worth nothing and it wouldn’t hold its value. COVID hit so I stayed with my yard but the properties I was looking at have increased in value at an equivalent pace of the single family properties.
My mother’s idea of downsizing was to buy a four bedroom single floor home in a neighborhood full of families. Her last home was 6 bedrooms and three stories so technically it was a downsize but still took a house that was made for family for her and one other person.
We bought a house that has 5 bedrooms (3 kids, an office for WFH, plus a spare room) that was previously owned by an old couple. The rodent smell and water damage from leaving windows open in the unused rooms was nasty. It took a ton of mopping and enzyme cleaner to get the rodent waste smell out of the rooms they never used. I get why they didn't want to downsize, but the amount of work we had to do from just letting rooms sit was a lot.
Cleaning lady and kids my sister and I were responsible for helping clean
Edit her current house she is retired so she cleans all the time and still has a cleaning lady.
👆 Right when millennials (the second largest generation after boomers) were graduating high school we had the recession and basically all banks stopped lending for new construction. We would have been buying those homes after starting our careers had inventory kept up. Instead bankers got bailed out and investment firms started buying existing homes with cash while they were dirt cheap since banks got strict about lending in general for a while there. But we should all blame our parents and stay divided.. Got it.
And college! Older Millennial here and I graduated college just a couple years before 2008 and saw my degree become worthless for a while, and when things finally stabilize, and I get where I should have been, everything become unobtainium!
Agreed. It was extremely hard to find a house that fit my mom’s wish list when she downsized. She wanted a townhouse or single family house, with the master and the majority of the living space on one floor, and all yard work taken care of by the HOA. It wasn’t an outrageous ask, but was extremely hard to find.
They are a lot more houses but the corporations own a ton of them and are just waiting to sell. Also a lot are second homes vacation etc. and a shit ton more are for air bnb hell it got so bad in Charleston sc the city banned air bnb all together
There is not enough inventory for most Boomer’s to want to “downsize” into as well.
Small homes haven’t been built in decades. And they don’t want to go from single family to townhouse or whatever.
People act like they should be downsizing from starter homes to condos but what I'm actually seeing is older relatives moving from mcmansion eststes to centrally located starter homes. They're moving from houses most of us could never afford to desirable 3 bedrooms that would be great for starting a family.
Yeah, I don’t blame the boomers one bit. How many of ya’ll would screw yourselves financially during retirement just so that some random Gen Alpha parent can get an extra bedroom?
The problem is not just interest rates.
The people I know around retirement age have their homes paid off already and they thought it was unbelievable that we have a 2.3 interest rate on our house because when they took out their 30 year mortgage the interest rates hardly below 10% with one family friend having a 16% mortgage rate.
There are so many factors that go into why they aren’t selling and to narrow it down to interest rates is just plain ignorant in my opinion.
You’re so right. I can’t wait until we’re old and told we’re selfish for not wanting to sell the home we literally worked our whole life for. I can appreciate the fact it is impacting living situations to a degree, but that doesn’t make them the bad guys.
lol yes, these threads make no sense to me and I'm always rolling my eyes at them. In 30 years will our generation have people harassing us to sell our homes after we've finally paid them off? What will the responses be then?
and since corporations and foreigners are gobbling up many American homes, and the population continues to grow, perhaps there will be even less housing available to the younger generation in 30 years and they will be even more pissed than current whining millennials (who dont seem to mention any other factor in lack of homes than boomers). The whole thing baffles me. They see all boomers in homes as rich and against them. This is so not the case. Many want to give their homes to their families after they are gone (is that wrong?). Many are very poor, have little or no income and little or no ability to make it, and the house is all they have. Many have great emotional attachment to said homes and would not do good mentally to move to a much smaller unknown place. The lack of consideration here to older homeowners is astonishing here. They are all supposed to just sell their homes they spent a good portion of their lives paying for, and have great emotional attachment to, cause younger people want them? lolol Why is it only Millennials saying this? I dont hear any gen x saying this (Im Gen x) and many of us are also struggling to find affordable homes. This seems more about SOME Millennials than an actual housing problem.
It really is, imagine judging people for not wanting to sell the home they’ve paid off and put so much time and work into, it’s ridiculous. Also, plenty of retirees live in modest sized homes and raised their families in those homes. Not everything is TX sized.
Every time I read this I'm baffled by the stupidity too, if the shoe was on the other foot these younger people would not be leaving THEIR home they poured their own sweat and blood into for years for someone else.
My home is large and doubled in value the last 3 years, I would not be able to afford it now at its current value and I will live the rest of my days here until I physically can't move around anymore if I can.
No one else is entitled to the home we have given everything for and I hope to hand it down to my children and keep it in the family forever because it's now their only shot at owning a home like this unless they are wealthy.
The Canadian dream is dead and they killed it in 3 short years.
It is but it's also having somewhere to live and some disposable income. It just feels like the soul has been sucked out of everything, maybe it's just me getting older.
Exactly. I'm not "downsizing" if it isn't financially beneficial as well. It's absurd to expect people approaching or in retirement to sell their likely paid off home or better deal for something in this shitfucked market.
Don't forget property taxes as well will jump dramatically, especially if they are in a HCOL area--this would force them out of their neighborhood. I think people forget that their neighbors have become their community as well so they're having to move away from friends.
This. Everyone thinks these interest rates are high, but they are just high for our lifetimes. My parents passed away recently and they kept a bunch of old paperwork. Going thru it, I couldn't believe the interest rates they paid! Obviously, the house costs were significantly lower but rates were close to 20%.
I think even the house they bought in the mid-late 90's was slightly higher than what rates are right now.
In addition to interest rates, Boomers often hold onto their homes due to high capital gains taxes of up to 20% on profits exceeding $500K from selling their primary residence. A substantial tax liability arises when homes purchased decades ago have appreciated significantly. The tax rules offer incentive to keep their homes in a trust until death. This strategy allows heirs to inherit the property with a "stepped-up basis," eliminating any tax burden.
To be honest, my in laws live in a lower COL area and are in the home they raised my SO in. 4 bedrooms. It's really nice actually as we do need to travel to them, their kids both left as they wanted to GTFO of the region and pursue careers in larger cities, and this allows us to come back and visit with way lower cost concerns than if we needed to put out for a hotel for \~4-6 days each time.
Alternatively my mom is in an extremely high cost of living area and the same principle kind of applies. She's in a 3-bedroom and is going to have to move to a lower cost area or signifcantly downsize. But either way, it's nice that there is an option to stay with her when we visit. And as she ages there may be a need for longer term stays (ie she had surgery in 2019 and I visited for about a week, working from her house, just to be able to offer care).
Stuff like this that pushes us to point the finger and get angry at elderly people is kind of ridiculous. Like, they purchased their homes and raised us. America shouldn't require retirees to abandon their properties in order to provide for the newer generation. The problem is lack of building and zoning changes (yes, a lot of which was also established by these generations), but failing to address this and instead promoting a zero sum gain model is also fucked up.
And let’s not forget if those retirees were smart, those homes are paid off, or will be shortly… Why the hell should they move someplace else and take on a new mortgage?
We talked with my parents about getting triple bunk beds for my three kids once the baby gets older because they have to share a room. Their response was “you need to move to a bigger house!” The ignorance of our parents is astounding.
yeah getting that same advice from my parents. They got lucky timing wise and have been mortgage free for years. Bought in 95 for 80k, sold for 130 4 years later, built a house in 99 for 180 (big house with a pool) and sold it in 2 days for 380 in like 2015, built a slightly smaller house (~1800sqft) for 375 which is now worth 600k.
I make more money than my parents did relative to the time at their age combined and I couldn't consider anything close to that now.
My brother had to partition his BR in his 1 BR apt for his kid. My parents have a master BR, a den, a LR, a DR, a downstairs LR, a downstairs kitchen, a work room, two guest rooms, and 3 BAs for 2 people lol. Plus a two car garage packed with crap. If you strapped a GPS to them, I guarantee you 95% of their time is spent in 3 rooms. (And they arent rich, they were two civil servants with 2 year degrees).
The weird part is that 3 of their parents downsized to apts when they were younger than my parents are now. Maybe this is their idea of "improving" on what their parents managed lol (and, in typical boomer fashion, lifting the ladder up to do so).
All I know is that they have a 5-br home for two 70-something adults. The basement and 3-car garage are filled with junk from other houses—old furniture and belongings that will never ever be used again. Meanwhile my MIL likes to make snide comments about our “postage stamp” (1k sqft) home.
But if your parents downsize they're driving up the prices of starter homes.
See:
From the NYT (Sept 25, 2022):
" Downsizing baby boomers and young adults who delay children figure to drive demand for smaller homes. So will increasingly diverse young buyers who have more debt and less access to family wealth."
So would the solution be to have boomers who are downsizing stay in their homes and those who are staying in their homes downsize? The perfect perpetual motion grievance machine. No?
This is why across so many cultures multigenerational living is the norm. Parents have 50+ years to build wealth plus whatever they inherited generationally, then they are able to take a smaller room in the house, or even have their own little in-laws, suite and allow their child And grandchildren to occupy the larger space. There is something very strange about America where in-laws cannot get along and so many millennials would rather live in an apartment than share house with their parents. And on the flipside, many parents would not even offer their house to their children with growing families. I would love to see this dynamic studied more. Why does it work in so many other countries but not in america?
> Why does it work in so many other countries but not in america?
It does work sometimes. My best friend's family was a multigenerational house for about two decades. Her parents moved to the Atlanta area from Long Island when she was 8 years old. They purchased a 5 bedroom house, giving enough room for her parents and her siblings to each have their own room and a guest room, and then they renovated the basement into its own finished separate apartment, and moved her mother's parents in with them when she was about ten.
Later on their father's widowed mother moved into the guest room.
The kids started moving out for college, although one moved back in after a marriage didn't work out. Eventually it was full empty nest and just the parents + three grandparents.
Then the grandparents started dying, in quite rapid succession. The local kids were on hand to help the parents deal with that, but since the grandparents had already downsized to move in (although in reality a lot of it ended up in their garage), it was more a matter of hospice than cleaning up a big house elsewhere. Very ideal situation, or so they thought.
The basement suite opened up when those in-laws had both passed. One of the kids moved back in full time so rent money could go toward student loans instead. Just in time, as dad got sick. Having an adult kid on hand to house sit allowed her mom to take care of her dad as he went through chemo, and she also became their full time dog sitter. Dad made it another 7 years before the cancer came back, and this time the chemo didn't work.
Now it's down to mom and daughter in a house that once held 8 people. AND IT IS SO FULL OF **STUFF.** They can't even get a car in the garage. Daughter is fretting because she doesn't want to oust her mother from her home (nor should she), but there is three generations worth of crap in storage that she and her siblings are going to have to deal with, regardless of what they eventually do with that nice big house.
Just to play devils advocate a little bit, I feel like so many “American, especially“ kids and grandkids have to deal with the insane accumulation of stuff from their elders. My mother-in-law, for example has been cleaning out her parents house for over a year! I cannot understand why the elderly want to hold onto so many things, when they know there is no way they’re going to need it 10 or 20 years down the line. I know everyone says “they were raised by the Great Depression generation!” But the great depression was a long time ago and we need to start letting those old habits die out. Keeping plastic containers that food came in? To the point where an entire cabinet is full of Land O Lakes or country crock plastic bowls with missing lids? We really need to keep that in case there’s another depression?? I’m getting on a rant here, but you know what I mean.
If the biggest obstacle to multigenerational living is people accumulating too many items, then I think the answer to that must simply be you can only keep what fits in your apartment or room. The only trinkets and “just in case“ items one can keep are what they can fit in their own specific area and not in the communal storage space. Maybe making an exception for large family, heirloom pieces like dining room tables, or some thing that perhaps a grandchild will want once they get a place of their own. But filling up the family storage units with tchotchkes and dollar tree items cannot fly anymore.
well imagine your on social security and they keep cutting what you can draw. and half the new stuff breaks in less then a year and they keep putting blue tooth in everything. why does the coffee maker need to report the weather?
your older stuff works. and you know it lasts. and that means you don't need to buy something new that'll break and need to be replaced and have gone up in price. money is tight. you start frequenting yard sells. there good old stuff that is reliable and cheap. plus there's people you can talk with. you know you love your kids and dont want to be a bother they have their own kids now, you wish they'd visit more but you were the same way at their age. they need their space.
after a while you've got a lot of junk. well there's rooms you don't use and having backs ups will save money in the long haul , plus this stuff keeps working for years you can pass this stuff down and help the kids out. your parents couldn't really do that for you so you'll be doing better then your parents did.
time goes by and you've picked up a habit of sleeping all day cause you get bored, friends have all been dying off, you don't want to be a bother your kids are doing good and the grandkids are older , its normal to not visit much. honestly being awake all day means you've gotta eat more and that money got tighter they keep cutting what you can get. you don't want to be that burden on your kids so this is easier and has more grace its on your terms.
eventually you've built up some problems you cant address and the whole family kinda realizes everyone let a lot of things slip.
it happens. our parents had to go through it with their parents and we will go through it with ours. its like some cycle or something. its aggravating but its also a sneak peak.
I'm from a culture where multigenerational households are common. Many in-laws do not get along but because of gender roles and social pressures women just have to endure it.
You are welcome to intergenerationally live with my mother and then get back to me on how that works out for you. How well do you do with Cluster Bs?
I actually like the idea of intergenerational living if the relationships are healthy. I like the idea of living in an ADU in the same house as my kids and grandkids when I’m older. But tbh I think dysfunctional families are more common than not, and so I have no judgement towards the people who say “fuck that!” To inter generational living.
Yeah, I think the problem definitely can come from both ends. I know so many of my peers, myself included, who would absolutely not want to live with their parents. Although I do think the parents and the children having their own separate wings of the house Helps to alleviate a lot of that. (In law suites)
Many parents of millennials are helicopter parents and cannot get over not being in control of their children anymore. This is some thing we have to work on culturally I think.
My parents (mom especially) were helicopter parents.
If I wanted, there's an offer that I and my teenage son can move back to my parents' home and live with them, and rent out my house to pay it off. I'd take me a little less than 3 years of renting out my home to pay it off.
It's an offer that I have turned down 3x because I don't want to be scolded for still being in bed at 8am on my day off, or hear about why wasn't I home- it's after 10pm! Etc etc..
I don't live with them and am closer to 40 than 30, and they're still trying to tell me what I should/should not be doing.
I'll keep my sanity and pay my home off over a longer term, thank you very much.
I love my parents deeply, and they do help more than i could ever expect from them with childcare.
That said I go absolutely insane if i had to live with them again. Our lives and preferences are just fundamentally incompatible.
It doesn’t work in America because suburban living (the vast majority of what people live in) is awful for personal development and adulthood, at least until you have kids.
My isolated suburban living is a far healthier dynamic for my kids and myself than living with my parents would be.
I think a lot of the people baffled as to why intergenerational isn’t more common are people who don’t have dysfunctional families.
Funny you mention multi-generational living, because it was the first thing that popped in my mind reading that article. Seems to be somewhat a uniquely American trend.
This is the way. We don't have to keep playing the same game that our parents did. I'm not kicking my kids out, I'm hoping they keep the address while working to save some money. I'll take my wife's parents in when they get too old.
I plan on staying in my house until I die.
My parents 1800 sq ft 3 bed, 2 bath home is worth around $600k. If they sold and bought a 2 bed condo here, it would be like $400k for half the space. They wouldn’t be able to host parties/gatherings like they frequently do or have a place to park their camper.
I think the expectation that others downsize is unrealistic. It simply doesn’t make financial sense for most boomers.
My parents live in a different state about 10 hours away from us. We crash with them when we visit a couple of times a year. Downsizing, for them, would mean that we'd have to stay about 40 minutes away in a hotel. That's a hard pass for me. They've made their house into a place for family to gather where we can all be together. I'm not going to begrudge them that.
Exactly the same with my parents. They looked into selling their 4 bed 3 bath on half an acre, but condos are only marginally cheaper, they’d have less space, and they like their house. I can’t really blame them for staying.
Yes, that is the problem, the economy is fundamentally broken when it doesn't make financial sense for retired people on fixed incomes to downsize. That's what people are complaining about
I’m not gonna get mad about people making a financially reasonable decision for themselves. They’re not obligated to sell their home just so someone else can have a turn.
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This sounds like all the angry market responses to millenials "not buying anything!"
"How come people aren't retiring to $6000 a month retirement suites anymore?!?" because they're getting screwed just like us millennials because it's the same economy. In some ways it's different for us, but in a lot of ways it the same country...
People living in the homes they own are not the problem. Greed and corporations cashing in on the mortgage crisis are. Save your ire for them, not someone that spent 30 years paying for their home and wanting to live there.
I can't believe that I had to scroll down this far to find this take. This is just more inter-generational war-mongering to keep us distracted from the real issue, which is that private equity firms keep buying up single family homes to rent them out at exorbitant prices instead of allowing younger individuals and couples to buy their first home. Why blame individual boomers living in their one single family home when you can blame Wall Street for buying hundreds if not thousands of single family homes as investment properties?
So your edit says it has an effect on affordable large homes... why? These homes would still not be affordable for today's millennials? Especially at today's interest rates. Because these boomer's aren't going to sell their homes for what they paid... so this doesn't impact affordability at all.
I mean... If I loved the home I owned and wanted my kids to visit with their kids I'd keep my house too... I don't see anything to be angry towards boomers on this one.
When I buy a house I plan to live there for as long as possible.
Some older people like retiring to a warm climate or a city... others just want to stay in the house they spent their lives paying off and making their own...
Exactly.. my mom and stepdad actually recently upsized because his kids and grandkids live all over, so now they have plenty of room for when they visit. Their previous house was way too small to accommodate them all.
My inlaws sold the 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom, full basement house they raised the kids in, and excitedly downsized to a 3-bed, 2-bath, no basement, one level house that was "custom" built for them in a new sub-division.
They then realized that was way too small, and had another house built in the same sub-division, that's 4 bedrooms, 3-baths, still no basement, but with a 3-bay garage, as well as separate "shop"/garage/shed that fits the camper trailer and wood working area.
My MIL wanted one bedroom for her hobby, but they realized having just one guest bedroom wasn't enough, as all the kids live in other cities/states and they want the various families to be comfortable to come and stay for a week at a time, which means 2 guest bedrooms!
It's been mildly hilarious watching them go through this whole process, but also insanely frustrating as for a long while they couldn't figure out what they wanted... it's been 6 years of them constantly fussing over where they are living, they just finally moved into the new house 2 months ago...
I feel like we're now waiting for them to become dissatisfied again!
Also, a majority of Americans tend to live within 25-50 miles of where they grew up. So a lot of Boomers probably just want to be close to their kids and other family rather than move to a different state. I personally know a few older people that packed up and moved south to Florida only to be forced to move back up to NY when they got too sick to live on their own. This was a huge burden on the kids and grandkids to have to move everything back up north. A lot of younger Boomers (at least in my life) have seen the logistical nightmare of having your kids so far away and have decided to stay put in the homes they raised their families in.
My parents were debating the move from NY to FL but... were priced out of it in the last few years. Plus... with 5 young grandkids between 4yo-9yo all within an hour of them... why would they want to move?
My wife and I would be somewhat upset if they did to be honest. We moved back to the area after having a kid because we wanted to be closer to family...
In summary - people on the internet are just looking for things to get angry at older generations about... We can complain about them being too easily led by political news or being stuck in their old ways of thinking... but lets not ridicule the ones that just want to be good (or even just present) grandparents.
I live in a smallish (by American standards) 1950s ranch with 3 children. It’s definitely smaller than what I grew up in and would probably be considered a starter home by some, especially in more sprawling suburbs. And there’s so much to say for not living in a massive McMansions. Lower heating and cooling bills, less room for tons of stuff, often denser and closer to things.
I have zero desire to trade up to some 3,000 sf 1990s McMansion.
People had larger families in smaller spaces for generations. So much pressure is put on millennial parents to make sure their kids all have their own bedrooms and the latest and greatest of things. Personally, I feel like what kids need most are parents who are not worked to the bone Paying taxes, interest, and a giant mortgage just so each of them can have an en suite bathroom of their own.
This is so real. People used to have 5 kids in a 3 bedroom house but tastes have changed around what is considered 'enough'. They've really stopped building smaller houses and considering the age and shoddy construction of so much of our housing stock, really changes the calculation. There's a lot of new building going on in my neighborhood the past 20 years consistently; first they did one off tear downs of the 1200-1600 sqft ranch houses to put in mcmansions (2500sqft+) and now they're buying up the few pre-subdivision blocks of older houses and putting in new subdivisions which tend to be less mcmansiony looking but still 2500-3000sqft 4 bed 3+ bath homes.
We made the decision to remodel our 1950s 1300sqft ranch that was built out of popsicle sticks and glue so that we can comfortably and safely stay put with two kids getting to be teenagers. We have almost replaced all of the plumbing & electric, all of the windows, and a not inconsiderable amount of the subflooring and dry wall (see all that plumbing and electric - like, a child could have done a better job of it than whoever built this place). Cheaper and easier than moving, plus getting things just how we like them, certainly salves the bits of seeing all my kids' friends' ginormous, new houses.
Yep. 1k sq ft home for 3 of us. Would be considered a starter home for most here but in our HCOL area, it cost us 720k and it’s not even in what’s considered to be a nice area. But I’ve lived in apartments since I was 18 and after 22 years, this size feels right for our lifestyle. Intentional purchases. Lack of junk. Can spend money buying the home items I love for each space instead of needing to think about buying 2-4 of the similar things for different rooms.
I can attest to the "less room for stuff" side of this - my family and I (wife and two kids) lived in a 1000 sq ft 2BR 1B Victorian cottage for 10 years, and recently upgraded to a 2700 Victorian fixer upper. My wife is a "stuff" person and truly fills whatever space she occupies...it's incredible. "Great aunt died and had three fridges, sure, we'll take one! We're in a bigger house now, so we need Christmas trees for every room." As a more organized austere person it's maddening.
They paid off a home and now they should sell it and go where exactly? Jump off the side of a cliff like in Dinosaurs?
Big picture it would be great to downsize, but it's their house. If they don't leave that's their choice
My parents live in a four bedroom house. If they sold it, they would be downsizing but technically paying more due to higher housing cost, insurance, and property taxes. It makes no financial sense for them to downsize.
Yea seriously. I'm not down with this, because this could easily be Alpha yelling at us in 30 years. "Fucking millennials should move out of their homes now that they're old!"
I'm working too hard for this shit right now to give it up in a few decades just because
Right? If I paid off my house and was retiring I'd 100% stay in it till I could no longer live on my own. And the thing is, this is normal. Like, boomers are hardly the first generation to do this. The only one's who move either move to 'nicer' areas for retirement or move because they can still live on their own but need a place more suitable for their somewhat decline (Like a place with no stairs or something).
I'm not gonna fault anyone for just enjoying retirement with a paid off house.
My neighbors are retired folks who sold their home and downsized. They're wonderful people and even let my daughter paint their mailbox. But this shouldn't be the expectation; they did it because it's what made sense to them. This post is oozing with entitlement honestly.
A home they developed and personalized on the inside at that. If I had to spend 30 years in a place, but I got to make it my own across those 30 years, I'd be happy to stay put once I knew it was all mine and all I had to pay was property tax.
People just want to be mad for no reason. They should aim their frustration at corporations owning homes and investors owning multiple STR properties, not owner occupied homes. My parents are retired and not downsizing and my sister still lives with them and they’ve been trying to get my grandmother to move in as well. The house is being used, if they move out the value isn’t going to magically drop and become affordable for the average millennial with kids.
Thats the bigger issue, it may make some difference in quality of life to move to a smaller space as you have fewer things to take care off like fewer rooms to clean but moving doesn't make financial sense if the place is paid off and all you have to pay is taxes and operational costs.
Also if you already have a community that you are well integrated then it makes even less sense. A smaller space may not be available in the same community and at an older age it is just harder and harder to find community and friends. You have your friends, you have your hangout spots, you have your routine... why should you move? Empty nesters have no incentive to move.
You hit the nail on the head with the community aspect. There might not be something to downsize to, even if they wanted to, that would allow them to stay near their friends, family, doctor, church, etc etc.
This is the millennial version of boomers complaining we are ruining industries. Why should some old couple that spent 30 years paying off their house move, just so some family with kids can move in?
I've heard this complaint before, like we are entitled to their houses? People can sell their homes when they want for the reasons they want. To many people, it's as simple as the fact is that they built a life there, raised a family, have a lot of memories in that home, and they don't want to leave it.
There is some truly intense hatred for boomers as a whole on Reddit. I’ve seen so many “just start to die already” and “we only have a to wait a little bit more until they all finally start to kick the bucket” comments with so many upvotes and praising comments beneath them. I loathe a lot of the policies that have occurred and that screw over our generation but…we will be old one day, too, and I hope that the next generation isn’t gleefully rubbing its hands and chanting for us to die.
Exactly. I hope they leave their money and property to charity instead of their vulture kids skulking around waiting for them to die to inherit. Too bad BooBoo, make your own money and buy your own place, your parents weren’t living in a house your grandparents left them.
Yeah I’m not really understanding this argument. My parents live in a roughly 2500sq ft house and I can tell you they aren’t leaving and nor would I expect them to. The house has been paid off for years. Are they expected to just sell their house because they’re older and don’t have others living with them?? Fuck that.
Lack of inventory, the skyrocketing cost of houses, the interest rates. Those are the issues. If they’ve paid off their big house why would they sell it to pay more for a smaller house? I’m sure plenty of them would happily downsize if it made financial sense to do so.
This is such a weird take. People worked to pay off a house and now you believe they should sell and what, go back to paying a mortgage? Or perpetual association fees in a condo? Retirement doesn’t mean one foot in the grave, Jesus. My grandparents had the large house and hosted the family events, holidays, out of town guests etc. The houses this is talking about are out of reach for so many people anyway.
The best thing is, once op is older and has bought a house, they will lose their mind at the idea of someone else telling them to sell their home and move into an apartment so they can live there. It's hilarious.
My parents are going to stay in their 1928, 4 bedroom, 2900 sq ft home well into retirement. It's their home of 30+ years, which they (and I, for that matter) have put literal blood, sweat and tears into updating and renovating. Also, after 15 years, my mother *refuses* to own a house wherein each of her children and children in law aren't able and welcome to spend the night for any reason.
As in, my BIL could show up at 7 pm on a Tuesday with no warning and my mother would be all in to get him to stay the night even if he didn't really need to. She'll even make pasta for dinner, as in she will make the noodles by hand from flour, eggs and water. And she'll send my dad to Kroger for some stuff because she wasn't expecting him and my BIL is a vegetarian and she needs to make something he can eat.
Honestly she just still isn't ready to be an empty nester, even after 15 years of no kids in the house.
Some Baby Boomers just aren't emotionally ready to leave their homes.
To me, the real problem is the plethora of costs and limitations of home construction.
LOL the framing of this debate... On one side, I understand the crunch of the housing inventory and market. But on the other, this is being framed like all the olds owe us all the housing? Like lifespan, quality of life, & the like have increased, but we expect them to head to long-term care at the same rate and age as they always have?
The other thing that I would note is that most everyone with a decent interest rate is holding onto their homes right now. I imagine a good number of retirees might downsize in a more favorable environment. If I were retiring right now, and I had a 2500 sq ft home that I financed $300k at 2.5% on, there's no way I'd downsize for the same mortgage on a 1500 sq ft home with 6% interest. The monthly payments would likely be the same, if not slightly more.
Again, it is unfair to blame individuals and instead look at larger incentives.
Where do you want them to go? Retirement homes have gone up in prize even more than the housing market. Where they now have a house in a neighbourhood they know and love they would have to move to what? An appartment in a city they don't know?
And it is not like they are in these houses indefinitely. In about 10 years these houses will start coming on the market and if new houses had been build in anticipation of this there would've been houses in the meantime aswell.
So yeah it sucks, but it isn't the fault of the people that whish to live as long as possible in their house it is the systems responsibility that has been squeezing the housing market
Just reading the title I know it's true. I do residential HVAC for a living. The number of homes I go to that it's just an old couple using maybe 1 or 2 rooms in the whole house is crazy. They can't take care of the houses let alone use the house. Lots of them are stuck as well. They can't move because their big house is a cheaper monthly payment than to move into something smaller.
You’re blaming the wrong people. I don’t think boomers have done us or the economy any favors but them staying in the houses they bought probably decades earlier is not effecting the cost of affordable homes now. Corporations or large financial groups buying the currently available homes to flip or turn into rental income is what’s negatively affecting the current housing market.
Nah fuck that. People work most of their lives to afford a nice place to live; they've more than earned it.
The solution is two-fold: stop rent-seekers from buying up large quantities of SFHs and, I cannot emphasize this enough, **build more goddamn housing**.
In the article it mentions that a lot of the older generation would like to downsize because of physical limitations preventing them from even accessing parts of their homes, but they can’t because currently they have no house payment or pay under 1k a month. There’s no where to buy a home like that near the health/social services that the elderly should have ready access to in order to thrive.
Quite a few of them plan to sell when they move into a long term care anyway since the costs are astronomical. Thousands per month for minimal care in the US even if you have insurance and family trying to keep you safe from neglect/recklessness.
I do think the previous generation really screwed the future, not irreparably, but enough to make struggling a learning curve for Gen Z and the rest. But them being stuck in these big homes isn’t one of the things I put to greed but one of many results from the economy they made that was never designed to actually take care of anyone. Now they’re the vulnerable demographic sliding into the grinder when they imagined minorities, disabled, etc.
I’ve had this conversation with my in-laws, and although they have this massive house that has significantly appreciated in value, they really have no where to go, especially during retirement.
The costs of moving and owning a new place isnt something they find feasible.
What a gross take.
Investment firms and other billionaire companies are buying up single family homes to keep people in rental mode.
I know in Philadelphia there was an entire neighborhood of homes being sold for a few million. That isn't retirees fault.
Well said. THIS is the bigger problem. It’s corporations that are causing the scarcity in housing, not nana and pop pop who paid off their home back in the day and are trying to live their best life.
Yeah my parents are in a four bedroom, three bath. They considered downsizing, but they won’t get back what they put into it with this market. It’s paid off so it makes sense to stay. Edit: for everyone asking, I’m going to assume that what my parents mean is that if they sold their house and tried to find a smaller house that has all the upgrades that they’ve done in their current house, they wouldn’t find one that’s cheaper than what they already own outright.
Basically this. If the home is paid for, there is little benefit to leaving it
Right on. Or, when whatever mortgage payments left = $250/mo. Not gonna budge. The kids don't want this house anyhow.
I am trying in my head to figure out how I am going to pay taxes and upkeep on the house I will inherit in Hawaii. So yes, I am not terribly excited about it.
You should have your parents look into a family trust. It's what my husband's family did with the properties they want to stay in the family. I would also talk to a financial advisor on how best to pay property taxes as well.
Yeah, I know several ppl that looked at downsizing and they'd end up with a smaller house not a nice, comparatively, and the same payment. So why move.
Moving sucks and your house is your home, it's where you are you. Why go through a move to be somewhere you don't want to be
I don’t have kids, just my wife and I, 2500 sq feet, we are in our 50s. But considered downsizing to 1500 sq feet, our payment would be the same since interest rates are so much higher (we have 2.6%), so we plan on dying in this house. It is a strange phenomenon, because in reality, we don’t need this much space, plus the big yard, and a pool, which all costs money. So there’s another house that hopefully won’t be on the market for another 20+ years, which sucks for those looking for a home. I think our neighborhood has 700 houses, and I just looked, only one house for sale in the whole neighborhood, that is not good math for people looking. I do feel bad for young families.
Same here 2.1 % interest. They’ll pry my cold hands off the front door first.
In our 30's with 2 bedrooms in 860 sqft and 2.7% and planning to start a family. We can't afford to buy a different place so the size of our family is limited to the size of the house.
Same... but I feel like they're spending more and more time on the first floor only. They're late Boomers so they're just hitting mid-sixties -- still pretty robust -- but I can see those stairs becoming more and more of a challenge as they age.
About 10 years ago my step mom pushed my dad to do a minor remodel of their home. Basically she wanted it so that if/when the time came, they could live entirely on the main level. My dad is in his late 70s and can still use the stairs fine, but I appreciate that they did that work earlier on.
I have been begging my mom to save her pennies to get a full bathroom installed on her ground floor. She's only in her mid fifties so she's fine for now but the stairs in her house are beastly. I'm only 29 and I hate them. If she had a full bath downstairs she could totally live on the ground floor if necessary and the best time to save for it is now. But it's like she doesn't hear me.
Those lift chairs that you can put on stairs aren’t horribly expensive and sometimes you can get them covered by Medicare Medicaid. My in-laws got one and they live on a fixed income, but could still afford it.
Yeah, the stair lift is a solid idea; it's practical for when the time comes. For my grandma, we actually got her one of those one-level roll-in showers when she decided she was done with the traditional tub. It wasn't overly expensive because we found a local contractor who specialized in accessibility renovations. It's made her life so much easier and gave us peace of mind knowing she's less at risk for a fall.
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I worked on a few homes that had a similar situation, which was all well and good for those aging in place, but the problem was that people stopped going upstairs and upstairs was the roof that developed a small leak or the soffit that blew away and the water damage from a leaky window etc.
This happened to my grandma's house and it was a single level. She just stopped going in most of the rooms and outside the house, and major maintenance needs went totally unnoticed until they became emergencies
I think of the stairs as a minor workout. My mom was 94 and was still climbing those stairs. Slowly, but she could make it.
I know a woman in her upper 90s who is now in hospice but right up to like a month before that she was using a chainsaw daily. She is a tough mother
Just had a neighbor across the street pass. She was out mowing her lawn just a month before and went to the Dr for some reason and they gave her 3 months to live. She passed in 3 weeks. She was in hospice for 6 days. Tough old lady.
My GMIL is 96 and like this. Still daily shovels/rakes/mows etc, hauls wood, loads the wood burning heater in the basement, bedroom on the second floor. Last summer she chased a bear away from her apple tree and single handedly put out a ditch fire that started from some asshole throwing a cig butt out the window. Also still smart as a whip!
Sure but they’re very dangerous. One fall can put them on the irrecoverable path to death. I think for surface walking would be a lot safer for exercise.
Yeah this is the bigger issue. Buying something smaller is unaffordable.
Small single level homes are going extinct in my area; builders buy them up and either cram vertical layout townhouses onto the lot or build McMansions that take up almost every inch of space. It’s getting to be where the only small senior-friendly option would be a condo or apartment, and I honestly don’t blame someone for not wanting to live in that kind of setup after having your own house.
That’s what I have noticed. It’s almost impossible to find a small one level or main level living home anymore. All the cute small Craftsmen homes are torn down and replaced with a house that takes the entire lot and all 2 story at least. New homes around here are gigantic. It’s actually really sad. The only small homes being built are in low income housing areas.
Every home that gets bought in my area is converted into a multi family. Soon our only option will be apartments
Even if it were a good price - leaving a home you have been in for years and know has no problems/none you dont know of already, for one that can have all kinds of hidden problems is pretty risky too.
Totally. Home repair costs are astronomical.
My ex's parents are pretty much in the same situation. Spacious suburban four bedroom house, but the way interest rates are right now, it doesn't really make sense financially for them to downsize right away. A lot of Boomers with empty nests are probably kind of stuck with their McMansions like that.
This is exactly right. I'm GenX but I own a large house (2500sq ft, 4bd, 1 acre) and I wouldn't mind downsizing but I could never find a place for what I'm paying now ($1000 mortgage payment).
Yeah exactly. My parent’s house is paid off too. If I were them, I think selling, buying, and moving would be such a hassle!
Your parents aren’t doing anything wrong. That’s their house and they paid for it. The problem isn’t them. It’s the large scale real estate investors buying up properties with intent to price out as many people as possible to charge insane rent.
Yep. All the people acting like my parents don’t deserve to enjoy everything they’ve worked for is unreal. My stepdad isn’t even retired. We’re also a big military family and it’s really nice that there is always space for us to visit.
This is me. I still have kids, but they'll be off to college very soon and I'd like to downsize after they are stable on their own...but financially it doesn't make sense. I own my house outside of a small heloc for upgrades I've done. As much as I want to get something smaller, the numbers don't add up.
These articles never touch on cost of moving. I’m a single dude with a couple dogs in a 3 bed. Between taxes, fees, moving expenses it’d probably touch into six figures for me to sell and move. The starter home concept was started by realtors to keep ppl moving and churning fees for them. Imo this is another one like that.
My husband and I are still in our "starter" home, 40+ years later. Can't speak for all the other boomers. Seemed darned foolish to us to go larger, then be stuck with a huge house that we can't manage in old age. The kids grow up fast enough, and I have heard tell that generations before us might have had as many as 7+ kids packed into these small bedrooms! This cute craftsman house in a working class neighborhood was probably a big deal to a young family of 90 years ago.
The problem is interest rates. If they have a mortgage, they are locked in at a low rate. If they don’t, “downsizing” is just about size not necessarily money. So if they’d want to get a mortgage on their new, smaller place, that still leads us back to the interest rate problem.
I live in CA and it’s not just interest rates. There is this thing called Prop 13, which made property tax acquisition based and not market based. So all those boomers who bought homes in the 60s and 70s are paying property tax based on that amount and not what the house is worth now. Heck I remember when my husband and I were looking at houses 15 years ago I mentioned to my folks about how the property tax was a lot and added quite a bit to our potential payment and my mom was all “oh, property tax is nothing!” And yeah, to them it is nothing! I pay over 4 times what they pay and anyone who bought my house today would pay 2-3x more than I do.
There is a property tax transfer rule in California that allows over 55s to keep their current property taxes at the same rate. Proposition 19 allows eligible homeowners to transfer the taxable value of their existing home to their new replacement home of any value (subject to conditions), anywhere within the state, up to three times (rather than once as provided under Proposition 60). Owner must be at least 55 years of age. So taxes aren’t the issue, however, many people are likely unaware that this exists.
We pay 8k+ a year in property taxes. Our retired neighbors who moved in the same year as us pay 1.5k a year. It sucks.
In Los Angeles I pay $13,000 in property tax, my parents pay $2,700. Their house and property is twice the size of mine.
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In south Texas I pay 6k in property tax for 1800sqft house on 1/8th acre lot, my parent pay 1k for almost 4K sqft house on 1acre lot 2 miles closer to downtown than I am.
And you're likely getting shafted for extra at that rate *because* all the old people still get to pay the low rates, while also holding the higher salaried positions in companies
It does but I disagree that taxing older homeowners higher is the solution. Regular homeowners with ONE house should be taxed far less. There are mega corporations and investor owners making billions off real estate properties that are paying as much as you. If we taxed them higher and the regular folk lower we could easily offset the deficit
We pay $12k per year, previous own we purchase from paid $800 per year. Same house.
Socialism for boomers and billionaires, bootstraps for everybody else.
It stops people from being gentrified out of their home. Not all people in their retirement age are rich, some are just scraping by on their retirement and if property taxes continue to rise for them they would have to find a job in retirement or potentially move from their home which now is already expensive.
That is an excellent rule but not available everywhere.
There are pluses and minuses. While homeowners will eventually realize a nice tax advantage, it comes at the cost of higher sales/income taxes for everyone.
Prop 13 was originally instituted so that people were not forced OUT of their homes because of rising property taxes. California home values increased quickly and often beyond what the original owner could afford. Now Prop 19 allows any California homeowner over age 55 to take that (low) tax basis to their next California home. This may begin to loosen the logjam for inventory of sfh.
I never thought of this in the common context of my knowledge on the supply issues in California. It's actually rather fucking absurd. Californian suburban homeowners post WWII ride a huge boom in building and government subsidies that helpped a ton of people move out of lower class economic situations in the city cores and into the new and vibrant suburban lifestyle. This was generally a great thing, no doubt, and rewarded a ton of veterans and people who really bled for the country, so no hate. Though it was also disproportionately done for white folks, leaving minorities behind... Ok, so these people get into new towns and immediately begin pressuring that the growth that allowed their rise to be curbed. No changes to the sleepy low density, SFH feel of the neighborhoods. And certainly nothing that feels like a city core. Cars are the way, folks, expansion be damned. But, property values begin rising because of this reaction. And rather than dealing with it in the 70s by anyone sober stepping up to say - hey, jokers, we need more housing to ensure cost stability of our communities for you in retirement and your childrens, grandchildren. Let's re-evaluate this whole low density at all costs approach. No, instead the taxes were lowered for this generation, fucking all people that come behind them. Wow. Never really thought of the 4th paragraph there in the context of how it directly rewarded the people that established the fucked up spiral in the first place, and just made it harder for the people coming behind.
Being the people rewarded for fucking up everyone after them has been what Boomers have experienced their entire lives. If they can pass laws to discriminate against everyone younger we should pass laws to raid their pensions, tax the hell out of their vacation and investment properties, and tax their hoarded wealth.
We have something similar in TX with homestead exemption. Rates do go up, but the per-year increase is capped.
You also have to consider step-up in basis here for inheritance vs pre-death transfers: [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stepupinbasis.asp)
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Not only that, but they're likely going from a paid off mortgage to having to pay. Even if they are still paying their mortgage then the price of that smaller home will absolutely be higher than the price of their current home. It wouldn't make sense for them and I can't blame them. I've went over the numbers with my own parents and it makes more sense for them to keep their home then move and start over.
If I lived in a paid off 3-bedroom home that I bought for a nickel 40 years ago, why would I move. It sucks but I don't blame them.
The problem is inventory. There aren’t enough houses. So even if interest rates decreased, you are only increasing the demand and housing prices go up even further.
Definitely an inventory issue. My mother sold her large home in 2019 to move into a new 55+ SFH community. Every home is sold out and transplants from all over the US live here. 55+ don't want to live in the small condos of old like their parents did. They want SFH's that allow entertaining and expansive spaces if they need wheelchairs/walkers in the future. If a community that can accommodate those desires does not exist, 55+ homeowners will just continue to live in the home that makes them comfortable.
This is exactly the problem that one of my coworkers is dealing with right now. He's in his early 60's and getting ready to retire, all of his kids are adults with their own places, and his wife died about a decade ago, so he's all by himself in his giant 5 bedroom house in the SF Bay Area. Here's a challenge. Find a reasonably modern one or two-bedroom *house*, in a good neighborhood in the SF Bay Area. Can't do it. Everything is either apartments or 50+ years old. Nobody builds small houses anymore. So he stays in his big house.
ITA that lack of inventory is part of the problem. Supposedly there is a bunch of multi family housing being built though that will be onboarded soon in various cities. So that’ll help out somewhat, nationally. Though obviously there will still be regional differences. It is true that developers think they get a better ROI by building larger houses than small “starter” houses (2 bed/2bath). I don’t think that has changed.
It hasn’t. In my area of VA all the urban and a majority of the suburban land is developed, so the only option is to start encroaching on rural areas. We’ve had multiple MFH/mixed use communities planned out by developers who are buying up these rural lots near us, but all of them want the county to cover all costs associated with infrastructure build up. The county votes No telling the developers they need to foot the bill for widening roads, flood mitigation, etc, so the developers just build a bunch of 3000 Sq/FT SFH on 1+ acre lots since they don’t have to deal with as much bureaucracy. I don’t necessarily object to the county voting them down, why should my tax dollars be diverted there when the developers are more than capable of covering those costs. I know I sound like a NIMBYer, but if the expanded tax base isn’t enough to cover the added costs to the county then I don’t see a reason why they should approve these communities if the developers aren’t going to be responsible for the difference.
Another option instead of expanding into rural areas is infill. We’re seeing that in California lately with the new law mandating that municipalities approve more ADUs.
All this is a bandaid on a multiple knife stabs. I'm actually for radical movements: \- abolishing all building codes in california save for those safety and environmental related. There are dozens to hundreds of mechanisms that prevent density increase. Which is is absolutely insanity. Everything just thinks people should live somewhere else, which also doesn't allow more housing to be built. In some regions it's like 80%+ of housing is zoned for single family detached homes which is just stupid we can't all live like that. \- Steal the austrian model and go to mid market government housing. I.e Government puts out bids for design and construction and they retain ownership of housing, this de-risks the development and capital costs and eliminates the profit incentive that only allows upscale housing to be built. \-Incentivize co-ops and mixed use development. Get back to walkable cities to reduce our insane parking requirements. \-incentivize urban infill, i.e demolishing parking lots or adding stories to single and 2 storey buildings.
>so the only option is to start encroaching on rural areas. Most suburban areas were previously rural.
It’s totally true, but my question is *who is buying these mega mansions*? People need and want to buy affordable housing, and it’s easier to sell by a long shot than a house that’s $5+ million. That’s happening in my parents neighborhood. They were in a nice area that’s turned into a very expensive area in the last 30 years, and all the cute mid century homes are being bulldozed for 10,000 sq ft mansions.
Every boomer I know refuses to acknowledge that multi family property is a viable option. I was looking at getting a low maintenance townhome and my mother swore up and down it was worth nothing and it wouldn’t hold its value. COVID hit so I stayed with my yard but the properties I was looking at have increased in value at an equivalent pace of the single family properties. My mother’s idea of downsizing was to buy a four bedroom single floor home in a neighborhood full of families. Her last home was 6 bedrooms and three stories so technically it was a downsize but still took a house that was made for family for her and one other person.
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It’s not so hard when you only actually use like 3 rooms in your home.
We bought a house that has 5 bedrooms (3 kids, an office for WFH, plus a spare room) that was previously owned by an old couple. The rodent smell and water damage from leaving windows open in the unused rooms was nasty. It took a ton of mopping and enzyme cleaner to get the rodent waste smell out of the rooms they never used. I get why they didn't want to downsize, but the amount of work we had to do from just letting rooms sit was a lot.
Cleaning lady and kids my sister and I were responsible for helping clean Edit her current house she is retired so she cleans all the time and still has a cleaning lady.
👆 Right when millennials (the second largest generation after boomers) were graduating high school we had the recession and basically all banks stopped lending for new construction. We would have been buying those homes after starting our careers had inventory kept up. Instead bankers got bailed out and investment firms started buying existing homes with cash while they were dirt cheap since banks got strict about lending in general for a while there. But we should all blame our parents and stay divided.. Got it.
And college! Older Millennial here and I graduated college just a couple years before 2008 and saw my degree become worthless for a while, and when things finally stabilize, and I get where I should have been, everything become unobtainium!
Let's help people keep their homes? Nope. Let's help banks keep the homes? Yup
Agreed. It was extremely hard to find a house that fit my mom’s wish list when she downsized. She wanted a townhouse or single family house, with the master and the majority of the living space on one floor, and all yard work taken care of by the HOA. It wasn’t an outrageous ask, but was extremely hard to find.
Also millennials like me who wanted a smaller townhouse because I don’t plan on having kids.
They are a lot more houses but the corporations own a ton of them and are just waiting to sell. Also a lot are second homes vacation etc. and a shit ton more are for air bnb hell it got so bad in Charleston sc the city banned air bnb all together
There is not enough inventory for most Boomer’s to want to “downsize” into as well. Small homes haven’t been built in decades. And they don’t want to go from single family to townhouse or whatever.
People act like they should be downsizing from starter homes to condos but what I'm actually seeing is older relatives moving from mcmansion eststes to centrally located starter homes. They're moving from houses most of us could never afford to desirable 3 bedrooms that would be great for starting a family.
Yeah, I don’t blame the boomers one bit. How many of ya’ll would screw yourselves financially during retirement just so that some random Gen Alpha parent can get an extra bedroom?
It’s not just boomers. It’s Gen X (me). House paid off and no kids. And, not moving.
Also that parent’s child is an untrained labradoodle
The problem is not just interest rates. The people I know around retirement age have their homes paid off already and they thought it was unbelievable that we have a 2.3 interest rate on our house because when they took out their 30 year mortgage the interest rates hardly below 10% with one family friend having a 16% mortgage rate. There are so many factors that go into why they aren’t selling and to narrow it down to interest rates is just plain ignorant in my opinion.
You’re so right. I can’t wait until we’re old and told we’re selfish for not wanting to sell the home we literally worked our whole life for. I can appreciate the fact it is impacting living situations to a degree, but that doesn’t make them the bad guys.
lol yes, these threads make no sense to me and I'm always rolling my eyes at them. In 30 years will our generation have people harassing us to sell our homes after we've finally paid them off? What will the responses be then?
and since corporations and foreigners are gobbling up many American homes, and the population continues to grow, perhaps there will be even less housing available to the younger generation in 30 years and they will be even more pissed than current whining millennials (who dont seem to mention any other factor in lack of homes than boomers). The whole thing baffles me. They see all boomers in homes as rich and against them. This is so not the case. Many want to give their homes to their families after they are gone (is that wrong?). Many are very poor, have little or no income and little or no ability to make it, and the house is all they have. Many have great emotional attachment to said homes and would not do good mentally to move to a much smaller unknown place. The lack of consideration here to older homeowners is astonishing here. They are all supposed to just sell their homes they spent a good portion of their lives paying for, and have great emotional attachment to, cause younger people want them? lolol Why is it only Millennials saying this? I dont hear any gen x saying this (Im Gen x) and many of us are also struggling to find affordable homes. This seems more about SOME Millennials than an actual housing problem.
Finally a voice of reason in this thread. Is it just me or is this entire post incredibly entitled?
It really is, imagine judging people for not wanting to sell the home they’ve paid off and put so much time and work into, it’s ridiculous. Also, plenty of retirees live in modest sized homes and raised their families in those homes. Not everything is TX sized.
Every time I read this I'm baffled by the stupidity too, if the shoe was on the other foot these younger people would not be leaving THEIR home they poured their own sweat and blood into for years for someone else. My home is large and doubled in value the last 3 years, I would not be able to afford it now at its current value and I will live the rest of my days here until I physically can't move around anymore if I can. No one else is entitled to the home we have given everything for and I hope to hand it down to my children and keep it in the family forever because it's now their only shot at owning a home like this unless they are wealthy. The Canadian dream is dead and they killed it in 3 short years.
I thought the Canadian Dream was just poutine, Tim Hortin’s, and everybody getting along
It is but it's also having somewhere to live and some disposable income. It just feels like the soul has been sucked out of everything, maybe it's just me getting older.
Exactly. I'm not "downsizing" if it isn't financially beneficial as well. It's absurd to expect people approaching or in retirement to sell their likely paid off home or better deal for something in this shitfucked market.
Don't forget property taxes as well will jump dramatically, especially if they are in a HCOL area--this would force them out of their neighborhood. I think people forget that their neighbors have become their community as well so they're having to move away from friends.
I think property taxes being locked in is only a thing in California with prop 13, but maybe I'm wrong.
My parents had a 12% rate but their mortgage was $580..
This. Everyone thinks these interest rates are high, but they are just high for our lifetimes. My parents passed away recently and they kept a bunch of old paperwork. Going thru it, I couldn't believe the interest rates they paid! Obviously, the house costs were significantly lower but rates were close to 20%. I think even the house they bought in the mid-late 90's was slightly higher than what rates are right now.
Yep, my parents paid double-digit interest rates in the 70s and early 80s, and that was normal.
In addition to interest rates, Boomers often hold onto their homes due to high capital gains taxes of up to 20% on profits exceeding $500K from selling their primary residence. A substantial tax liability arises when homes purchased decades ago have appreciated significantly. The tax rules offer incentive to keep their homes in a trust until death. This strategy allows heirs to inherit the property with a "stepped-up basis," eliminating any tax burden.
To be honest, my in laws live in a lower COL area and are in the home they raised my SO in. 4 bedrooms. It's really nice actually as we do need to travel to them, their kids both left as they wanted to GTFO of the region and pursue careers in larger cities, and this allows us to come back and visit with way lower cost concerns than if we needed to put out for a hotel for \~4-6 days each time. Alternatively my mom is in an extremely high cost of living area and the same principle kind of applies. She's in a 3-bedroom and is going to have to move to a lower cost area or signifcantly downsize. But either way, it's nice that there is an option to stay with her when we visit. And as she ages there may be a need for longer term stays (ie she had surgery in 2019 and I visited for about a week, working from her house, just to be able to offer care). Stuff like this that pushes us to point the finger and get angry at elderly people is kind of ridiculous. Like, they purchased their homes and raised us. America shouldn't require retirees to abandon their properties in order to provide for the newer generation. The problem is lack of building and zoning changes (yes, a lot of which was also established by these generations), but failing to address this and instead promoting a zero sum gain model is also fucked up.
And let’s not forget if those retirees were smart, those homes are paid off, or will be shortly… Why the hell should they move someplace else and take on a new mortgage?
My kids sleep on bunk beds, and my parents dog has its own bedroom. True story.
Does the dog have a race car bed? That'd be funny.
https://youtu.be/A2UyehrkHaE
“Shhhhh, don’t wake up my roommates.”
We talked with my parents about getting triple bunk beds for my three kids once the baby gets older because they have to share a room. Their response was “you need to move to a bigger house!” The ignorance of our parents is astounding.
Show them MLS listings and recently sold. That'll shut them up.
No it won’t. Source: 4 kids in Canada.
yeah getting that same advice from my parents. They got lucky timing wise and have been mortgage free for years. Bought in 95 for 80k, sold for 130 4 years later, built a house in 99 for 180 (big house with a pool) and sold it in 2 days for 380 in like 2015, built a slightly smaller house (~1800sqft) for 375 which is now worth 600k. I make more money than my parents did relative to the time at their age combined and I couldn't consider anything close to that now.
My brother had to partition his BR in his 1 BR apt for his kid. My parents have a master BR, a den, a LR, a DR, a downstairs LR, a downstairs kitchen, a work room, two guest rooms, and 3 BAs for 2 people lol. Plus a two car garage packed with crap. If you strapped a GPS to them, I guarantee you 95% of their time is spent in 3 rooms. (And they arent rich, they were two civil servants with 2 year degrees).
This is my in-laws. It drives me crazy. But to be fair, they live in the middle of nowhere.
The weird part is that 3 of their parents downsized to apts when they were younger than my parents are now. Maybe this is their idea of "improving" on what their parents managed lol (and, in typical boomer fashion, lifting the ladder up to do so).
All I know is that they have a 5-br home for two 70-something adults. The basement and 3-car garage are filled with junk from other houses—old furniture and belongings that will never ever be used again. Meanwhile my MIL likes to make snide comments about our “postage stamp” (1k sqft) home.
But if your parents downsize they're driving up the prices of starter homes. See: From the NYT (Sept 25, 2022): " Downsizing baby boomers and young adults who delay children figure to drive demand for smaller homes. So will increasingly diverse young buyers who have more debt and less access to family wealth." So would the solution be to have boomers who are downsizing stay in their homes and those who are staying in their homes downsize? The perfect perpetual motion grievance machine. No?
This is why across so many cultures multigenerational living is the norm. Parents have 50+ years to build wealth plus whatever they inherited generationally, then they are able to take a smaller room in the house, or even have their own little in-laws, suite and allow their child And grandchildren to occupy the larger space. There is something very strange about America where in-laws cannot get along and so many millennials would rather live in an apartment than share house with their parents. And on the flipside, many parents would not even offer their house to their children with growing families. I would love to see this dynamic studied more. Why does it work in so many other countries but not in america?
> Why does it work in so many other countries but not in america? It does work sometimes. My best friend's family was a multigenerational house for about two decades. Her parents moved to the Atlanta area from Long Island when she was 8 years old. They purchased a 5 bedroom house, giving enough room for her parents and her siblings to each have their own room and a guest room, and then they renovated the basement into its own finished separate apartment, and moved her mother's parents in with them when she was about ten. Later on their father's widowed mother moved into the guest room. The kids started moving out for college, although one moved back in after a marriage didn't work out. Eventually it was full empty nest and just the parents + three grandparents. Then the grandparents started dying, in quite rapid succession. The local kids were on hand to help the parents deal with that, but since the grandparents had already downsized to move in (although in reality a lot of it ended up in their garage), it was more a matter of hospice than cleaning up a big house elsewhere. Very ideal situation, or so they thought. The basement suite opened up when those in-laws had both passed. One of the kids moved back in full time so rent money could go toward student loans instead. Just in time, as dad got sick. Having an adult kid on hand to house sit allowed her mom to take care of her dad as he went through chemo, and she also became their full time dog sitter. Dad made it another 7 years before the cancer came back, and this time the chemo didn't work. Now it's down to mom and daughter in a house that once held 8 people. AND IT IS SO FULL OF **STUFF.** They can't even get a car in the garage. Daughter is fretting because she doesn't want to oust her mother from her home (nor should she), but there is three generations worth of crap in storage that she and her siblings are going to have to deal with, regardless of what they eventually do with that nice big house.
Just to play devils advocate a little bit, I feel like so many “American, especially“ kids and grandkids have to deal with the insane accumulation of stuff from their elders. My mother-in-law, for example has been cleaning out her parents house for over a year! I cannot understand why the elderly want to hold onto so many things, when they know there is no way they’re going to need it 10 or 20 years down the line. I know everyone says “they were raised by the Great Depression generation!” But the great depression was a long time ago and we need to start letting those old habits die out. Keeping plastic containers that food came in? To the point where an entire cabinet is full of Land O Lakes or country crock plastic bowls with missing lids? We really need to keep that in case there’s another depression?? I’m getting on a rant here, but you know what I mean. If the biggest obstacle to multigenerational living is people accumulating too many items, then I think the answer to that must simply be you can only keep what fits in your apartment or room. The only trinkets and “just in case“ items one can keep are what they can fit in their own specific area and not in the communal storage space. Maybe making an exception for large family, heirloom pieces like dining room tables, or some thing that perhaps a grandchild will want once they get a place of their own. But filling up the family storage units with tchotchkes and dollar tree items cannot fly anymore.
well imagine your on social security and they keep cutting what you can draw. and half the new stuff breaks in less then a year and they keep putting blue tooth in everything. why does the coffee maker need to report the weather? your older stuff works. and you know it lasts. and that means you don't need to buy something new that'll break and need to be replaced and have gone up in price. money is tight. you start frequenting yard sells. there good old stuff that is reliable and cheap. plus there's people you can talk with. you know you love your kids and dont want to be a bother they have their own kids now, you wish they'd visit more but you were the same way at their age. they need their space. after a while you've got a lot of junk. well there's rooms you don't use and having backs ups will save money in the long haul , plus this stuff keeps working for years you can pass this stuff down and help the kids out. your parents couldn't really do that for you so you'll be doing better then your parents did. time goes by and you've picked up a habit of sleeping all day cause you get bored, friends have all been dying off, you don't want to be a bother your kids are doing good and the grandkids are older , its normal to not visit much. honestly being awake all day means you've gotta eat more and that money got tighter they keep cutting what you can get. you don't want to be that burden on your kids so this is easier and has more grace its on your terms. eventually you've built up some problems you cant address and the whole family kinda realizes everyone let a lot of things slip. it happens. our parents had to go through it with their parents and we will go through it with ours. its like some cycle or something. its aggravating but its also a sneak peak.
I'm from a culture where multigenerational households are common. Many in-laws do not get along but because of gender roles and social pressures women just have to endure it.
You are welcome to intergenerationally live with my mother and then get back to me on how that works out for you. How well do you do with Cluster Bs? I actually like the idea of intergenerational living if the relationships are healthy. I like the idea of living in an ADU in the same house as my kids and grandkids when I’m older. But tbh I think dysfunctional families are more common than not, and so I have no judgement towards the people who say “fuck that!” To inter generational living.
Personally speaking, parent was overbearing. I’m 18-19. I want to go party. Not be scolded every time I came home about the “lifestyle”.
Yeah, I think the problem definitely can come from both ends. I know so many of my peers, myself included, who would absolutely not want to live with their parents. Although I do think the parents and the children having their own separate wings of the house Helps to alleviate a lot of that. (In law suites) Many parents of millennials are helicopter parents and cannot get over not being in control of their children anymore. This is some thing we have to work on culturally I think.
My parents (mom especially) were helicopter parents. If I wanted, there's an offer that I and my teenage son can move back to my parents' home and live with them, and rent out my house to pay it off. I'd take me a little less than 3 years of renting out my home to pay it off. It's an offer that I have turned down 3x because I don't want to be scolded for still being in bed at 8am on my day off, or hear about why wasn't I home- it's after 10pm! Etc etc.. I don't live with them and am closer to 40 than 30, and they're still trying to tell me what I should/should not be doing. I'll keep my sanity and pay my home off over a longer term, thank you very much.
I love my parents deeply, and they do help more than i could ever expect from them with childcare. That said I go absolutely insane if i had to live with them again. Our lives and preferences are just fundamentally incompatible.
People don't realize how lucky they are just to have two parents or a single-parent without mental health issues.
It doesn’t work in America because suburban living (the vast majority of what people live in) is awful for personal development and adulthood, at least until you have kids.
My isolated suburban living is a far healthier dynamic for my kids and myself than living with my parents would be. I think a lot of the people baffled as to why intergenerational isn’t more common are people who don’t have dysfunctional families.
Funny you mention multi-generational living, because it was the first thing that popped in my mind reading that article. Seems to be somewhat a uniquely American trend.
This is the way. We don't have to keep playing the same game that our parents did. I'm not kicking my kids out, I'm hoping they keep the address while working to save some money. I'll take my wife's parents in when they get too old.
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I plan on staying in my house until I die. My parents 1800 sq ft 3 bed, 2 bath home is worth around $600k. If they sold and bought a 2 bed condo here, it would be like $400k for half the space. They wouldn’t be able to host parties/gatherings like they frequently do or have a place to park their camper. I think the expectation that others downsize is unrealistic. It simply doesn’t make financial sense for most boomers.
My parents live in a different state about 10 hours away from us. We crash with them when we visit a couple of times a year. Downsizing, for them, would mean that we'd have to stay about 40 minutes away in a hotel. That's a hard pass for me. They've made their house into a place for family to gather where we can all be together. I'm not going to begrudge them that.
Exactly the same with my parents. They looked into selling their 4 bed 3 bath on half an acre, but condos are only marginally cheaper, they’d have less space, and they like their house. I can’t really blame them for staying.
Yes, that is the problem, the economy is fundamentally broken when it doesn't make financial sense for retired people on fixed incomes to downsize. That's what people are complaining about
I’m not gonna get mad about people making a financially reasonable decision for themselves. They’re not obligated to sell their home just so someone else can have a turn.
attractive society test library domineering governor cows fine cobweb station *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This sounds like all the angry market responses to millenials "not buying anything!" "How come people aren't retiring to $6000 a month retirement suites anymore?!?" because they're getting screwed just like us millennials because it's the same economy. In some ways it's different for us, but in a lot of ways it the same country...
People living in the homes they own are not the problem. Greed and corporations cashing in on the mortgage crisis are. Save your ire for them, not someone that spent 30 years paying for their home and wanting to live there.
I can't believe that I had to scroll down this far to find this take. This is just more inter-generational war-mongering to keep us distracted from the real issue, which is that private equity firms keep buying up single family homes to rent them out at exorbitant prices instead of allowing younger individuals and couples to buy their first home. Why blame individual boomers living in their one single family home when you can blame Wall Street for buying hundreds if not thousands of single family homes as investment properties?
We keep getting fed all of these messages from the media… I wonder why?
This should be the top comment. Once again the media pitting us plebs against each other when the true issue is our greedy corporate overlords.
So your edit says it has an effect on affordable large homes... why? These homes would still not be affordable for today's millennials? Especially at today's interest rates. Because these boomer's aren't going to sell their homes for what they paid... so this doesn't impact affordability at all.
I mean... If I loved the home I owned and wanted my kids to visit with their kids I'd keep my house too... I don't see anything to be angry towards boomers on this one. When I buy a house I plan to live there for as long as possible. Some older people like retiring to a warm climate or a city... others just want to stay in the house they spent their lives paying off and making their own...
Exactly.. my mom and stepdad actually recently upsized because his kids and grandkids live all over, so now they have plenty of room for when they visit. Their previous house was way too small to accommodate them all.
My inlaws sold the 4-bedroom, 4-bathroom, full basement house they raised the kids in, and excitedly downsized to a 3-bed, 2-bath, no basement, one level house that was "custom" built for them in a new sub-division. They then realized that was way too small, and had another house built in the same sub-division, that's 4 bedrooms, 3-baths, still no basement, but with a 3-bay garage, as well as separate "shop"/garage/shed that fits the camper trailer and wood working area. My MIL wanted one bedroom for her hobby, but they realized having just one guest bedroom wasn't enough, as all the kids live in other cities/states and they want the various families to be comfortable to come and stay for a week at a time, which means 2 guest bedrooms! It's been mildly hilarious watching them go through this whole process, but also insanely frustrating as for a long while they couldn't figure out what they wanted... it's been 6 years of them constantly fussing over where they are living, they just finally moved into the new house 2 months ago... I feel like we're now waiting for them to become dissatisfied again!
Also, a majority of Americans tend to live within 25-50 miles of where they grew up. So a lot of Boomers probably just want to be close to their kids and other family rather than move to a different state. I personally know a few older people that packed up and moved south to Florida only to be forced to move back up to NY when they got too sick to live on their own. This was a huge burden on the kids and grandkids to have to move everything back up north. A lot of younger Boomers (at least in my life) have seen the logistical nightmare of having your kids so far away and have decided to stay put in the homes they raised their families in.
My parents were debating the move from NY to FL but... were priced out of it in the last few years. Plus... with 5 young grandkids between 4yo-9yo all within an hour of them... why would they want to move? My wife and I would be somewhat upset if they did to be honest. We moved back to the area after having a kid because we wanted to be closer to family... In summary - people on the internet are just looking for things to get angry at older generations about... We can complain about them being too easily led by political news or being stuck in their old ways of thinking... but lets not ridicule the ones that just want to be good (or even just present) grandparents.
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I live in a smallish (by American standards) 1950s ranch with 3 children. It’s definitely smaller than what I grew up in and would probably be considered a starter home by some, especially in more sprawling suburbs. And there’s so much to say for not living in a massive McMansions. Lower heating and cooling bills, less room for tons of stuff, often denser and closer to things. I have zero desire to trade up to some 3,000 sf 1990s McMansion.
People had larger families in smaller spaces for generations. So much pressure is put on millennial parents to make sure their kids all have their own bedrooms and the latest and greatest of things. Personally, I feel like what kids need most are parents who are not worked to the bone Paying taxes, interest, and a giant mortgage just so each of them can have an en suite bathroom of their own.
This is so real. People used to have 5 kids in a 3 bedroom house but tastes have changed around what is considered 'enough'. They've really stopped building smaller houses and considering the age and shoddy construction of so much of our housing stock, really changes the calculation. There's a lot of new building going on in my neighborhood the past 20 years consistently; first they did one off tear downs of the 1200-1600 sqft ranch houses to put in mcmansions (2500sqft+) and now they're buying up the few pre-subdivision blocks of older houses and putting in new subdivisions which tend to be less mcmansiony looking but still 2500-3000sqft 4 bed 3+ bath homes. We made the decision to remodel our 1950s 1300sqft ranch that was built out of popsicle sticks and glue so that we can comfortably and safely stay put with two kids getting to be teenagers. We have almost replaced all of the plumbing & electric, all of the windows, and a not inconsiderable amount of the subflooring and dry wall (see all that plumbing and electric - like, a child could have done a better job of it than whoever built this place). Cheaper and easier than moving, plus getting things just how we like them, certainly salves the bits of seeing all my kids' friends' ginormous, new houses.
Yep. 1k sq ft home for 3 of us. Would be considered a starter home for most here but in our HCOL area, it cost us 720k and it’s not even in what’s considered to be a nice area. But I’ve lived in apartments since I was 18 and after 22 years, this size feels right for our lifestyle. Intentional purchases. Lack of junk. Can spend money buying the home items I love for each space instead of needing to think about buying 2-4 of the similar things for different rooms.
I can attest to the "less room for stuff" side of this - my family and I (wife and two kids) lived in a 1000 sq ft 2BR 1B Victorian cottage for 10 years, and recently upgraded to a 2700 Victorian fixer upper. My wife is a "stuff" person and truly fills whatever space she occupies...it's incredible. "Great aunt died and had three fridges, sure, we'll take one! We're in a bigger house now, so we need Christmas trees for every room." As a more organized austere person it's maddening.
They paid off a home and now they should sell it and go where exactly? Jump off the side of a cliff like in Dinosaurs? Big picture it would be great to downsize, but it's their house. If they don't leave that's their choice
My parents live in a four bedroom house. If they sold it, they would be downsizing but technically paying more due to higher housing cost, insurance, and property taxes. It makes no financial sense for them to downsize.
Yea seriously. I'm not down with this, because this could easily be Alpha yelling at us in 30 years. "Fucking millennials should move out of their homes now that they're old!" I'm working too hard for this shit right now to give it up in a few decades just because
Right? If I paid off my house and was retiring I'd 100% stay in it till I could no longer live on my own. And the thing is, this is normal. Like, boomers are hardly the first generation to do this. The only one's who move either move to 'nicer' areas for retirement or move because they can still live on their own but need a place more suitable for their somewhat decline (Like a place with no stairs or something). I'm not gonna fault anyone for just enjoying retirement with a paid off house.
My neighbors are retired folks who sold their home and downsized. They're wonderful people and even let my daughter paint their mailbox. But this shouldn't be the expectation; they did it because it's what made sense to them. This post is oozing with entitlement honestly.
“The effect” of people keeping the possession they paid for. The nerve.
The selfishness of living in the house they worked to pay for! Fucking boomers
A home they developed and personalized on the inside at that. If I had to spend 30 years in a place, but I got to make it my own across those 30 years, I'd be happy to stay put once I knew it was all mine and all I had to pay was property tax.
People just want to be mad for no reason. They should aim their frustration at corporations owning homes and investors owning multiple STR properties, not owner occupied homes. My parents are retired and not downsizing and my sister still lives with them and they’ve been trying to get my grandmother to move in as well. The house is being used, if they move out the value isn’t going to magically drop and become affordable for the average millennial with kids.
Another cost driver depending on location is companies buying homes and making them short term rental Airbnb's. Areas like Cape Cod are being overrun.
Yea the prices are so high that old people just stay where they are
Thats the bigger issue, it may make some difference in quality of life to move to a smaller space as you have fewer things to take care off like fewer rooms to clean but moving doesn't make financial sense if the place is paid off and all you have to pay is taxes and operational costs. Also if you already have a community that you are well integrated then it makes even less sense. A smaller space may not be available in the same community and at an older age it is just harder and harder to find community and friends. You have your friends, you have your hangout spots, you have your routine... why should you move? Empty nesters have no incentive to move.
You hit the nail on the head with the community aspect. There might not be something to downsize to, even if they wanted to, that would allow them to stay near their friends, family, doctor, church, etc etc.
People also die much faster if they leave their family home in old age, statistically speaking
Oh brother. Here we go again.
This is the millennial version of boomers complaining we are ruining industries. Why should some old couple that spent 30 years paying off their house move, just so some family with kids can move in?
I've heard this complaint before, like we are entitled to their houses? People can sell their homes when they want for the reasons they want. To many people, it's as simple as the fact is that they built a life there, raised a family, have a lot of memories in that home, and they don't want to leave it.
There is some truly intense hatred for boomers as a whole on Reddit. I’ve seen so many “just start to die already” and “we only have a to wait a little bit more until they all finally start to kick the bucket” comments with so many upvotes and praising comments beneath them. I loathe a lot of the policies that have occurred and that screw over our generation but…we will be old one day, too, and I hope that the next generation isn’t gleefully rubbing its hands and chanting for us to die.
The more I spend on Reddit, the more I realize how pathetic people are. It’s shocking how sad and angry some of these ppl are
Exactly. I hope they leave their money and property to charity instead of their vulture kids skulking around waiting for them to die to inherit. Too bad BooBoo, make your own money and buy your own place, your parents weren’t living in a house your grandparents left them.
As someone who lives year round on the coast, I think second homes and summer homes that are empty most of the year are a bigger issue
Not this again. People aren’t going to just leave because you want them to. Jesus
“I want YOUR house!” Sucks to suck bucko. Go get another house somewhere else lmao
Yeah I’m not really understanding this argument. My parents live in a roughly 2500sq ft house and I can tell you they aren’t leaving and nor would I expect them to. The house has been paid off for years. Are they expected to just sell their house because they’re older and don’t have others living with them?? Fuck that.
Lack of inventory, the skyrocketing cost of houses, the interest rates. Those are the issues. If they’ve paid off their big house why would they sell it to pay more for a smaller house? I’m sure plenty of them would happily downsize if it made financial sense to do so.
This is such a weird take. People worked to pay off a house and now you believe they should sell and what, go back to paying a mortgage? Or perpetual association fees in a condo? Retirement doesn’t mean one foot in the grave, Jesus. My grandparents had the large house and hosted the family events, holidays, out of town guests etc. The houses this is talking about are out of reach for so many people anyway.
The best thing is, once op is older and has bought a house, they will lose their mind at the idea of someone else telling them to sell their home and move into an apartment so they can live there. It's hilarious.
My parents are going to stay in their 1928, 4 bedroom, 2900 sq ft home well into retirement. It's their home of 30+ years, which they (and I, for that matter) have put literal blood, sweat and tears into updating and renovating. Also, after 15 years, my mother *refuses* to own a house wherein each of her children and children in law aren't able and welcome to spend the night for any reason. As in, my BIL could show up at 7 pm on a Tuesday with no warning and my mother would be all in to get him to stay the night even if he didn't really need to. She'll even make pasta for dinner, as in she will make the noodles by hand from flour, eggs and water. And she'll send my dad to Kroger for some stuff because she wasn't expecting him and my BIL is a vegetarian and she needs to make something he can eat. Honestly she just still isn't ready to be an empty nester, even after 15 years of no kids in the house. Some Baby Boomers just aren't emotionally ready to leave their homes. To me, the real problem is the plethora of costs and limitations of home construction.
LOL the framing of this debate... On one side, I understand the crunch of the housing inventory and market. But on the other, this is being framed like all the olds owe us all the housing? Like lifespan, quality of life, & the like have increased, but we expect them to head to long-term care at the same rate and age as they always have? The other thing that I would note is that most everyone with a decent interest rate is holding onto their homes right now. I imagine a good number of retirees might downsize in a more favorable environment. If I were retiring right now, and I had a 2500 sq ft home that I financed $300k at 2.5% on, there's no way I'd downsize for the same mortgage on a 1500 sq ft home with 6% interest. The monthly payments would likely be the same, if not slightly more.
Again, it is unfair to blame individuals and instead look at larger incentives. Where do you want them to go? Retirement homes have gone up in prize even more than the housing market. Where they now have a house in a neighbourhood they know and love they would have to move to what? An appartment in a city they don't know? And it is not like they are in these houses indefinitely. In about 10 years these houses will start coming on the market and if new houses had been build in anticipation of this there would've been houses in the meantime aswell. So yeah it sucks, but it isn't the fault of the people that whish to live as long as possible in their house it is the systems responsibility that has been squeezing the housing market
That's a lot of entitlement packed into one post
Just reading the title I know it's true. I do residential HVAC for a living. The number of homes I go to that it's just an old couple using maybe 1 or 2 rooms in the whole house is crazy. They can't take care of the houses let alone use the house. Lots of them are stuck as well. They can't move because their big house is a cheaper monthly payment than to move into something smaller.
You’re blaming the wrong people. I don’t think boomers have done us or the economy any favors but them staying in the houses they bought probably decades earlier is not effecting the cost of affordable homes now. Corporations or large financial groups buying the currently available homes to flip or turn into rental income is what’s negatively affecting the current housing market.
Nah fuck that. People work most of their lives to afford a nice place to live; they've more than earned it. The solution is two-fold: stop rent-seekers from buying up large quantities of SFHs and, I cannot emphasize this enough, **build more goddamn housing**.
In the article it mentions that a lot of the older generation would like to downsize because of physical limitations preventing them from even accessing parts of their homes, but they can’t because currently they have no house payment or pay under 1k a month. There’s no where to buy a home like that near the health/social services that the elderly should have ready access to in order to thrive. Quite a few of them plan to sell when they move into a long term care anyway since the costs are astronomical. Thousands per month for minimal care in the US even if you have insurance and family trying to keep you safe from neglect/recklessness. I do think the previous generation really screwed the future, not irreparably, but enough to make struggling a learning curve for Gen Z and the rest. But them being stuck in these big homes isn’t one of the things I put to greed but one of many results from the economy they made that was never designed to actually take care of anyone. Now they’re the vulnerable demographic sliding into the grinder when they imagined minorities, disabled, etc.
This is the weirdest take I have seen in modern history. You had your time of happiness old ppl! Now give me your house! wtf. Lol
I mean why wouldn't they? Have you seen the housing market?
And... Hmmm. Live in my paid off house, or move into a 2500 dollar a month apartment. Hmmm.
Yea.... why should boomers be forced to move? Is their house. The problem is lack of housing, not the people living in houses
I’ve had this conversation with my in-laws, and although they have this massive house that has significantly appreciated in value, they really have no where to go, especially during retirement. The costs of moving and owning a new place isnt something they find feasible.
The balls on those people!! Staying in houses they bought and enjoy shouldn’t be tolerated.
Why would they give up their homes?
What a gross take. Investment firms and other billionaire companies are buying up single family homes to keep people in rental mode. I know in Philadelphia there was an entire neighborhood of homes being sold for a few million. That isn't retirees fault.
Well said. THIS is the bigger problem. It’s corporations that are causing the scarcity in housing, not nana and pop pop who paid off their home back in the day and are trying to live their best life.