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 Member Update
 New Study on Millennials and Housing Takes on IJntergenerational Conflict Over Home Ownership
Millennials Blame Boomers and Older Generations for Affordability, Access Issues
ust as the younger generation of home buyers the shortage of housing by doing what businesses in free is reaching the point in their lives when they market economies do best: identifying rising assets and want to buy a starter home, they are entering acquiring them in bulk.
a market where, simultaneously, Baby
Boomers are deciding to downsize, putting a strain on available housing stock. With longer life expectancies and better overall health than any generation in history, Boomers are not quite ready to give up on private home ownership—and with the horror stories about retirement homes and care facilities during
the pandemic, this attitude becomes understandable. One survey respondent noted: “[Baby] Boomers need to stop buying starter homes as their retirement homes. It’s driving the cost up to where first-time home buyers can’t afford it.”
To further exasperate the problem for millennials trying to buy a home in this under-supplied market is that Baby Boomers are not their only competition. Baby Boomers are just the tip of the iceberg. While millennials pin the blame on the older generations, a far less visible factor is the contingent of well financed institutional buyers who have collectively taken a lot of stock off the market. Private Equity investors and buyers have, in fact, contributed to
The way millennials perceive it, the older generations have almost all the spending power and are able to reach into their pockets and pull out over-full price offers, often in cash. This leaves the younger generation—scrambling to get together a down payment and struggling to establish credit—on the losing end of these deals. They do not have the ready cash, nor, just as often, the time or ability to jump on properties the minute they come on the market.
This is where the deeper inquiry comes in. While there is truth in these comments and more than a few clues about where things went wrong for them, millennials hold the additional awkwardness that they are often the beneficiaries of the older generation’s largesse—according to our research, almost a quarter of them couldn’t get together a down payment without borrowing or being gifted family money.
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Nearly half (48%) of non-home owning millennials are saving for a down payment
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