The Atlantic has a story out about how the aging of the baby boom will lead to a housing crash. I am skeptical, because research I am doing with Hyojung Lee suggests that old people do not move out of their homes very much, and so as boomers age, they will not be glutting the market with their houses.
But there is another reason to think that the homeownership rate could fall: people are getting married at a decreasingly low rate. Susan Brown at Bowling Green has a study that shows that the marriage rate has dropped by 60 percent since 1970; right now slightly less than half of American households are married couple households. As recently as 1960, 3/4 of American households were married couple households.
I’m interested in looking at Green and Lee’s research. In my area there is an incredible building boom for senior-living housing.
For several reasons I think there will likely be a(nother) housing bust – at least in some regions. But I do see momentum by senior citizens to spend what they’ve invested in their houses on what amounts to apartments with meals and transportation. I’ll also add that they expect these places to act as nursing homes, and for what they pay they may as well get that level of service. But the reality is that it’s the emergency health infrastructure (fire/ambulance/hospitals), and thus everyone else, picking up the slack and the bill.