Buying a family-sized home with three or more bedrooms used to be manageable for young people with children. But with home prices climbing faster than wages, mortgage rates still close to 23-year highs and a shortage of homes nationwide, many Millennials with kids can’t afford it. And Gen Z adults with kids? Even harder.
Meanwhile, Baby Boomers are staying in their larger homes for longer, preferring to age in place and stay active in a neighborhood that’s familiar to them. And even if they sold, where would they go? There is a shortage of smaller homes in those neighborhoods.
As a result, empty-nest Baby Boomers own 28% of large homes — and Milliennials with kids own just 14%, according to a Redfin analysis released Tuesday. Gen Z families own just 0.3% of homes with three bedrooms or more.
The actual solution is to build more and reject the idea that homes should be a monetary investment (because that requires limited supply, which requires that somebody who needs a home in an area can’t get it in order to make demand drive the price up)
It really isn’t the solution.
I would totally agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that there is an abysmal amount of vacant homes.
Investment companies buy up entire neighborhoods leaving them empty allowing them to jack prices up in the area for rentals.
This has nothing to do with there being not enough homes. The issue is investment companies turning housing into a monopoly.
Building more won’t do shit because investment firms will gobble those up too. New homes are mad expensive too so the only people affording them are rich people or investment firms.
Remove Wall Street from housing and the problem is solved.
Investment companies does make it worse, but they wouldn’t be able to cause a crisis if homes were built in such volumes that they can’t be investments. They’re buying expecting value to go up. Build enough and that can’t happen.