Meredith has been predicting the silver tsunami since 2023, but since it hasn’t happened (yet), she is now reversing course and is saying seniors are broke and can’t afford to move:
Baby boomers are dragging on the housing market because most can’t afford to move out of their homes, according to Meredith Whitney, the “Oracle of Wall Street” who predicted the Great Financial Crisis.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday, she said many cash-strapped Americans have been borrowing against their homes, and 44% of home-equity loans are being taken out by seniors, “which is counterintuitive. It’s crazy, right?”
That’s contrary to the typical narrative of baby boomers sitting on vast amounts of wealth accumulated over their lifetimes, which spanned unprecedented economic expansions and stock market booms.
As a result, seniors with a lot of money have an edge in the tight housing market, accounting for 42% of all homebuyers, while millennials account for 29% despite the younger generation being in the prime buying years.
But while most buyers are boomers, it doesn’t mean most boomers have a giant pile of cash.
“I divide it into different cohorts,” Whitney said. “So the senior which everyone thinks ‘the boomers have all this money’—that’s a small portion. Seniors are living paycheck to paycheck.”
To be sure, boomers collectively have $75 trillion of wealth. But that’s not distributed evenly, and Whitney estimated that just one in 10 seniors can afford assisted-living facilities.
As a result, many are forced to stay put and age in place, she added. (Stubbornly high mortgage rates also have created a “lock-in” effect where homeowners who got in the market when rates were low are now reluctant to buy a new home at today’s elevated borrowing costs.)
“This is one of the problems with the housing inventory,” Whitney told Bloomberg. “They’re staying in their houses longer because they can’t afford to move out.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-baby-boomers-t-afford-220048092.html
For Pete’s sake – seniors could afford to move if they just sell their house. The reason they don’t move is because they don’t want to leave town, which is the only way to make it worth moving.
The seniors that do move are getting closer to family, and in particular, closer to the grandkids. All the rest are staying until the end.
> Meredith… is now reversing course and is saying seniors are broke and can’t afford to move.
People are living better longer. Technology is delaying the need to downsize or seek simpler accommodations. Same for access to services.
The cost of moving is sufficient to make aging in place a value proposition. For us, Props 13 and the others help reinforce.
I’m tired of refuting her wild guesses for the last 2 decades.
She has only gotten one guess right and she could have read it on mine, yours, or Bill’s blog and took credit for it!
Affordability is the main concern, not aging boomers.
Stubbornly high prices do not mix with 7% mortgage rates.
Here is wishing the easy money gravy train has ended so that normal families have a chance of buying a home again.
Many markets (except Coastal California) have already regressed 25% below their peak from less than 3 years ago.
Thanks Bemused.
Normal families have always had a chance at buying a home. However, they may not like where it’s located.