Millennials own less than half the real estate wealth of boomers—can they catch up?

RealWarrenBuffett@lemm.eebanned from community to News@lemmy.world – 98 points –
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GenX not even mentioned. 🏆

Hey man, I'm Gen X and I have a house.

It's in a shitty town I hate living in and if I sold it, I couldn't afford to buy a house anywhere else, but I have a house!

I'm GenX and I just bought my first house. Just shows you what working hard for 29 years can get you! Just got to work for another 29 and I can start thinking about retirement and then work another 29 cause millennials killed retiring. Damn millennials.

I keep telling my wife that every time she talks about moving. My house has almost doubled in price. There are no houses within 60 miles for the price we paid that aren't ghetto or half the size.

Gen X as well here - I've come to the conclusion that while I'm not expecting to be able to afford to retire at a reasonable age and have no life insurance beyond what my employer offers, the one thing I'm hoping to be able to leave my children is my house. For so many years raising them we were broke and housing was definitely questionable at times, but now I'm about 6.5 years into a 30 year mortgage. If it can be maintained, at least they won't have to worry (as much) about losing the roof over their heads. And if need be they'll be able to sell it when I'm gone, and hopefully it'll still be worth something.

But of course. Did you think you were only going to be ignored as a kid?

/golfclap

Amazing.

All we were good for was being silent consumers and producers.

Well, eventually they'll all be dead...

It's insane the largest group of home buyers is boomers already, but obviously they can't keep it up for more than a decade or two max.

Just enough time to ruin the retirements of millenials and screw up their children's generation too

Trying to get into a small 2 bedroom was so hard in my area. If the house was in good shape and didn’t have stairs, downsizing boomers were throwing giant all cash offers at the home with 30% over asking.

We need to normalize retirement communities.

The last thing I want to fuck with in old age is maintaining a house. We need "condo subdivisions" close to supermarkets and other amenities.

I have no idea why a 70 year old wants to deal with home ownership

I work in hospice and regularly visit independent and assisted living facilities. Some are set up like duplexes, some are condo/apartment style. The costs of these facilities can be insane. One of the cheaper independent facilities I was seeing a patient in was charging just over $6000 month for a one room studio. Yes, utilities were included with basic basic cable channels.

Isn't that supposed to help to some degree? I thought part of the housing trouble was boomers staying in large homes too long meant less homes for younger families with kids to use.

It will make it easier to get into homes with 3 or more bedrooms, but it makes it harder to get into smaller 1 and 2 bedroom “starter” homes.

In my area I’m seeing that that the barrier between renting and owning a small home is bigger than the barrier between owning a small home and upgrading to a larger home.

I think part of the problem is that when those houses are opening up, investment groups are buying them for rentals.

Well so will you and everyone else. In a few decades, you and me and everyone we know will have turned to worm food underground. Nobody will say our names or remember what we did, and nobody will remember the financial struggles, or who donald trump was, or why Israel went on a rampage against Palestinians. (although that will probably still be going on forever).

I think the implied premise of this article that the young will "catch up" with retirees is quite flawed. Not saying there aren't issues here but anyone in their 20s and 30s will not be as well off as most are in their 60s and 70s.

How could they not? Do boomers not die anymore?

Just waiting for the boomers to die out and the market collapses to follow

Maybe my grandchildren will have financial stability

Yes.

There are multiple ways to buy homes.

Also people do not live forever. Baby boomers die. They go to assisted living and home get sold.

On top of that, we really should be focusing on corporate ownership of housing artificially inflating prices of homes, but instead we get propagandized into dividing generations

I think the reason younger people are upset at boomers about this isn’t that their generation caused it directly as a generation of people, it is that (at least in the US) the general complete lack of awareness about how austerity, deregulation of everything and trickle down economics is utter nonsense coupled with a deep distrust of any kind of unions that in general defines the (US at least) boomer generation created a huge space for corporations to eat away at the foundations of the society that made boomers able to live relatively high quality lives.

Yes it is the rich that are ruining everything, but boomers still bought the bullshit the rich were selling hook line and sinker and most refuse to interface with that at all even as they watch their kids clearly growing up into adults with much less quality of life than they had.

So yes, let’s keep this focused on the rich but that doesn’t mean boomers don’t deserve shit, especially middle class and wealthier boomers in the US.

Sold to a Chinese corporation that outbids every prospective individual or family purchaser to tie down the area housing market and rent the houses to people at high rates.

God bless America.

And Wallstreet is buying every home they can get their hands on. You'll rent and be happy about it!

Yes this. I also know of multiple boomers who have done the reverse mortgage garbage to maintain their lifestyle.

Kids didn't even get the house when they died. The bank got it back.

Never understood why anyone would agree to a reverse mortgage. Unless they really do not want their kids to have the house for some reason.

I can see it working if you have nobody in your life. For example, I have no kids and zero interest in my POS extended family that I've cut off amyways. If I could afford a house now I would legit consider a reverse mortgage when I'm older for extra income.

Part of it is timing and the market also -- back in the day my parents and grandparents had a "stock market" meeting where they'd decide what companies to put their money into - they went with IBM and a little known publishing firm called "Marvel." Both were fledgling organizations back then.

So, now I'm in my parents' estate and I was able to retire early (really I didn't need to work, but I liked my job) and I see how high home prices are for the U.S. now and wonder how new families are ever going to be able to continue to live and find housing in this country.

Especially since those stock market rules keeping it fair don't exist anymore, and it's just a cash grab for those at the top when you stop paying attention for a second and then your 3rd "once in a lifetime" crisis hits you again.

Back in 1998 I managed to convince my dad to put some money into a struggling little company called Apple Computer, Inc.

Sometimes it's just a matter of getting the timing right. My parents had financial advisors, so it wasn't all just them choosing on their own, but they made good choices. Me, I never had the bravery to buy stocks on faith, but big gains come from big risks.

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