Are Baby Boomers the Cause for Our Lack of Housing Inventory?

According to First American, “Existing home sales make up approximately 90% of all home sales, which means existing homeowners must sell their homes in order for homes to be available for sale.” Next, in July they noted America’s tenure length in their homes increased by 11% from a year earlier. This is equal to a loss of nearly 425k potential home sales First American says.

This loss of supply keeps housing inventory tight and makes housing more unaffordable. You combine this with not enough new housing being built, this means home prices and rents will continue to rise.

In a recent survey of American homeowners Property Shark discovered that 56% of Baby Boomers want to remain in their home and “age in place”. This doesn’t surprise me much.

I see this reflected in a strong majority of my Baby Boomer clients and even more so amongst you real estate agents too as I close many refinances for you personally. It’s amazing to me how many of you have lived in your home for over 20 or 30 years. WOW!

But, that also means you are helping cause the lack of housing inventory we have been facing for several years. Our market needs more long-term owners to sell their homes and buy a new home. Are you wiling to do that for our real estate market?