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.
My parents live in Texas and I live in WA. They say they wish they could afford to live closer to me, but based on their actions it seems like they value having a big piece of real estate more than they value being close to me.
Or maybe they’re happy living where they’ve lived for so long, in a big comfortable property, rather than uproot everything they’ve known to live close to you with no guarantee that you’ll visit regularly and not move again for another job.
Or maybe I know the situation better than you.
They haven’t lived in their house very long, they have virtually no community connections there, they don’t like it much, and it’s pretty obvious that I’m not planning another cross country move ever.
But go off.
Did they move away from you or did you move away from them?
What difference does that make? I have just as much right to choose where I live as they do to choose where they live.