The median Boomer has a housing cost of $612. That includes taxes and insurance.

[Anonymous]

It’s because we have stupid “age in place” incentives, which aren’t good public policy.

Being older isn’t an excuse not to pay your share of property taxes (some locales lock taxes in place based on age).

Keeping older people in giant SFHs (which are a finite resource in areas near job centers) is terrible public policy. It’s not environmentally friendly to have one or two people using all these utilities. And as in the case of my aging MIL who refuses to move, it leads to a lot of family stress from falling down the stairs (already had one hospital stay and she continues to go downhill as her giant home falls into disrepair).

Everyone likes to tell younger people you don’t always get what you want, but why can’t we say the same to older people? We as a society shouldn’t have to subsidize them through low property taxes just because they want to sit in their wealth without tapping into equity to pay taxes or move. We shouldn’t be giving tax credits so they can modify their homes to make them adapted to the elderly.

If you want to stay in your big house as you get old then you need to be able to pay for it yourself (taxes, modifications, and all). It’s so hypocritical to tell younger people that if they want something they have to save/pay for it themselves, but then also expect society to help them afford what they want.

[Anonymous]

My mortgage is very affordable (I'm a millennial), but my taxes are more than $600 a month by themselves. I think I pay $7500 a year. And then there's insurance which is like 2k a year.

I do not think elderly people should have subsidized property taxes. First, they benefited from schools/libraries/police in their earlier years and then secondly, they're the highest users of our fire department! Looking at the fire department blotter, well over half the calls are for the elderly (likely in homes that are unsafe for them...). Same with ambulances and our hospitals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

The elder care industry.

Some, but not all of it. In the next decade or two, we’re going to see an inheritance windfall like never before. It’s not like the past where retirement was tied up in pensions and Social Security. Boomers and GenX are sitting on trillions in retirement savings, living off the interest. They can’t possibly spend the principle in their lifetimes.

So here's an idea Millennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha: use ur technology skills to build better platforms to deliver those elder care services. U know...sort of like being the Amazon for elder care service delivery. Just beats whining about that job. Be the change u want to see.
The price for in-home elder care is easily going to hit $150-200/hour in the next 15 years. We will have soooooo many Boomers who will need care but will have a shortage of facilities, doctors, nurses, and home health aides. Medicare and Medicaid will likely only cover a small fraction of the actual market-based costs. Lots of practitioners will stop accepting Medicare and Medicaid except absolute bottom-of-the-barrel crap.

The massive “inheritance windfall” will only be among a relatively small cohort of ultra-high net worth white families.

Honestly it’s completing unsurprising that it will cost so much. Providing physical care to adults who may have memory and toilet care issues is exhausting hard work. Not that many people want to do it so they demand outstrips the supply.

The boomers don’t seem to have much empathy for younger people dealing with unfavorable supply and demand for housing, so I just don’t have much empathy for the cost of eldercare. Younger people can’t force older people to sell their homes and older people can’t force younger people to change their diapers.

Also, the flip side of all the home equity older people have built up is that high cost of living now means labor prices are increased. If they have to liquidate all their wealth to pay for their care so be it. And they should have been saving for it all along just like millennials are constantly be told if we want something we should save for it. Okay, well then take your own advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Boomers bought trade up homes in middle age so mortgages will go to their 70s and 80s

Not just Boomers. We are Gen X and moved when we were 44 and 47 - left the city and bad schools and moved to the suburbs. With a 2.625% mortgage, it's hard to justify paying it off. But when we retire, I may do it - the no-debt mantra is very strong, even though I know it wouldn't be the right thing to do. Or, we may just sell, and pay cash for 2 smaller homes in retirement for what this place is worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

The irony is that you just proved our point: there are Boomers who have amassed small fortunes by having a career as a teacher, nurse, firefighter, low wages jobs, etc. They were able to buy property near job centers, had low cost for education (teacher or nurse), maybe a pension, decent 401K match.

Not at all possible today for similar jobs held by Millennials or Gen Z to amass significant assets as Boomers who held the same professions. This is the story!

Actually, the irony is that you didn't realize you were replying to an RN. I work in a DC hospital with plentiful RNs and other healthcare workers who live and own in DC area, suburbs and exurbs. Generally, no nurse or teacher was affording the super fancy real estate even in the 50s, people bought where they could and over time those areas became more desirable. You have to be willing to live where you can afford rather than think you are entitled to the best of the best.

This is a very good point. As neighborhoods change, what was once a modest, "buy there because that's where we could afford something" neighborhood can become very desirable. A lot of it is luck. And it will happen to other neighborhoods in 30 years, too. If you can guess where, you'll be in great shape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because we have stupid “age in place” incentives, which aren’t good public policy.

Being older isn’t an excuse not to pay your share of property taxes (some locales lock taxes in place based on age).

Keeping older people in giant SFHs (which are a finite resource in areas near job centers) is terrible public policy. It’s not environmentally friendly to have one or two people using all these utilities. And as in the case of my aging MIL who refuses to move, it leads to a lot of family stress from falling down the stairs (already had one hospital stay and she continues to go downhill as her giant home falls into disrepair).

Everyone likes to tell younger people you don’t always get what you want, but why can’t we say the same to older people? We as a society shouldn’t have to subsidize them through low property taxes just because they want to sit in their wealth without tapping into equity to pay taxes or move. We shouldn’t be giving tax credits so they can modify their homes to make them adapted to the elderly.

If you want to stay in your big house as you get old then you need to be able to pay for it yourself (taxes, modifications, and all). It’s so hypocritical to tell younger people that if they want something they have to save/pay for it themselves, but then also expect society to help them afford what they want.

I agree, with one caveat. Everyone should absolutely pay their fair share in taxes. But on the other hand, it's understandable that older people who have lived in a house for their whole lives resent having to move. Rather than subsidies, or locking low rates/assessments in place, we should have a program where senior citizens can defer some or all of their taxes until either they move or sell the property, whichever comes first. When that happens, the back taxes become due, along with some reasonable interest.

So no, a senior citizen isn't forces out of their home because they can't afford the taxes. But neither are they absolved from paying what they owe forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because we have stupid “age in place” incentives, which aren’t good public policy.

Being older isn’t an excuse not to pay your share of property taxes (some locales lock taxes in place based on age).

Keeping older people in giant SFHs (which are a finite resource in areas near job centers) is terrible public policy. It’s not environmentally friendly to have one or two people using all these utilities. And as in the case of my aging MIL who refuses to move, it leads to a lot of family stress from falling down the stairs (already had one hospital stay and she continues to go downhill as her giant home falls into disrepair).

Everyone likes to tell younger people you don’t always get what you want, but why can’t we say the same to older people? We as a society shouldn’t have to subsidize them through low property taxes just because they want to sit in their wealth without tapping into equity to pay taxes or move. We shouldn’t be giving tax credits so they can modify their homes to make them adapted to the elderly.

If you want to stay in your big house as you get old then you need to be able to pay for it yourself (taxes, modifications, and all). It’s so hypocritical to tell younger people that if they want something they have to save/pay for it themselves, but then also expect society to help them afford what they want.

I agree, with one caveat. Everyone should absolutely pay their fair share in taxes. But on the other hand, it's understandable that older people who have lived in a house for their whole lives resent having to move. Rather than subsidies, or locking low rates/assessments in place, we should have a program where senior citizens can defer some or all of their taxes until either they move or sell the property, whichever comes first. When that happens, the back taxes become due, along with some reasonable interest.

So no, a senior citizen isn't forces out of their home because they can't afford the taxes. But neither are they absolved from paying what they owe forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s because we have stupid “age in place” incentives, which aren’t good public policy.

Being older isn’t an excuse not to pay your share of property taxes (some locales lock taxes in place based on age).

Keeping older people in giant SFHs (which are a finite resource in areas near job centers) is terrible public policy. It’s not environmentally friendly to have one or two people using all these utilities. And as in the case of my aging MIL who refuses to move, it leads to a lot of family stress from falling down the stairs (already had one hospital stay and she continues to go downhill as her giant home falls into disrepair).

Everyone likes to tell younger people you don’t always get what you want, but why can’t we say the same to older people? We as a society shouldn’t have to subsidize them through low property taxes just because they want to sit in their wealth without tapping into equity to pay taxes or move. We shouldn’t be giving tax credits so they can modify their homes to make them adapted to the elderly.

If you want to stay in your big house as you get old then you need to be able to pay for it yourself (taxes, modifications, and all). It’s so hypocritical to tell younger people that if they want something they have to save/pay for it themselves, but then also expect society to help them afford what they want.

I think it’s good public policy to allow people on fixed incomes to remain in the homes they’ve lived in for decades. Why do you have such a problem with giving retired people a break on property taxes? Not everyone has some huge nest egg to draw from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop your whining and get a therapist to help you deal with your very transparent issues with your parents.

NP. My parents aren’t Boomers but I legitimately don’t see how people don’t understand why Millrennials/Gen Z/Gen Alpha feel enraged that no matter how hard they work they will never have the ability to build wealth the way previous generations did.

Who do you think is going to inherit the houses and 401k balances of boomers?

Real answer: private equity and asset management firms that own housing vulture funds, nursing homes, hospital networks, and physician practices.

Yeah, people who discount this don't understand how it works. And the PP who mentioned that many Boomers amassed small fortunes with no or little skill is right, which is one reason Boomers are so susceptible to this-- many have no clue how to protect their money from being gobbled up by elder and end-of-life care.

Also, don't laugh, but scammers are a genuine concern. They are getting more aggressive and clever, there are more of them, and they know Boomers are sitting on piles of cash. I know of two Boomer men who recently got scammed out of thousands this way. It could have been a lot more.

And to be fair, what is the special skill that the younger generations have? They can make a mean pivot table and slide deck? Most people aren't sitting at the top in a leadership position, they are sitting somewhere in the middle bored and daydreaming.

Also some of the jobs boomers have had successfully - nurses, teachers, etc, we still need desperately today. Are you knocking those positions? Are you being condescending to people who work low wage jobs?

The irony is that you just proved our point: there are Boomers who have amassed small fortunes by having a career as a teacher, nurse, firefighter, low wages jobs, etc. They were able to buy property near job centers, had low cost for education (teacher or nurse), maybe a pension, decent 401K match.

Not at all possible today for similar jobs held by Millennials or Gen Z to amass significant assets as Boomers who held the same professions. This is the story!

Actually, the irony is that you didn't realize you were replying to an RN. I work in a DC hospital with plentiful RNs and other healthcare workers who live and own in DC area, suburbs and exurbs. Generally, no nurse or teacher was affording the super fancy real estate even in the 50s, people bought where they could and over time those areas became more desirable. You have to be willing to live where you can afford rather than think you are entitled to the best of the best.

Also remember that nurses and teachers were overwhelmingly women, and many banks didn’t allow women weren’t to sign mortgages by themselves until a law finally required them to in 1974.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was in Texas recently. Lots of new construction homes being built.

The irony of red states generally having less restrictive zoning.

https://www.newsweek.com/blue-states-housing-market-crisis-1877226

Texas is big and flat. Very easy to build. California has challenging geography - the only empty places left to build are mountainous and/or prone to wild fire risks or very inhospitable. California needs to build upward to compensate, yet nimby’s fight anything that isn’t a SFH or townhouse.

The last time we had a “New Deal for Housing” was post WW2 when the GIs came back and had no houses for their wives and kids. They had to live with aging parents. We will need another similarly dire situation in order to bulldoze over NIMBY protests to upzoning

That’s a cop out for CA and the Northeast. Texas is building more density than any other state. The runners up are in the south and intermountain west.

There are about 20 million people that live in the Dallas-FW, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio metropolitan areas (not include all of the “small towns” in between and around each of those metro areas like Waco, Abilene, College Station or Tyler. That area covers 150,000 square miles even though the distances between these cities is under 3 hours without traffic and for Texan a daily 60, 70 mile trip is nothing special. That allows for suburban sprawl (and potentially cheap housing) that is basically in the exurbs of an other major metropolitan area all without leaving the state. I’m not sure there is anything like that any where else in the US. The New York, Newark, Jersey City statistical area has about the same pollution but all condensed into 20,000 square feet. The point is this data isn’t that helpful unless it is further divided by geography.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a problem selling when DH and I can no longer live in our home. We have realtors sending us letters regularly asking if we are interested in selling to their clients with young families. Developers would be able to knock down our house, subdivide our lot, and build two homes plus ADUs. It just doesn't make financial sense to move while we are physically able to live here. because of capital gains taxes. We could convert our downstairs office into a masters, add a shower that can accommodate a wheelchair, add a few bars and ramps, send out our laundry and order in groceries. My parents did similar accommodations and were able to manage with just a daytime caregiver. It would be foolish to sell earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Are boomers grandfathered in to low taxes and insurance or something? How on earth could they pay so much lower than the rest of us with similar houses?

When it comes to property taxes, many states (eg, California) and local jurisdictions (eg, DC and thousands of other cities & counties) cap property taxes from appreciating for long time home owners. So if you own your home for a long time, you will pay only a fraction in property taxes of what newer home owners will pay. This is especially true in areas that have seen rapid price appreciation in recent years.

It’s massively market-distorting and keeps older residents in their big homes because they don’t want to pay more in taxes. California tried to alleviate this by allowing older residents to sell their home and apply the original discounted property tax rate to a new property….its had mixed results. But even in California, you have houses in Malibu that are worth $10m but they pay the original property tax on the $300K value when they purchased the property in 1980. So maybe they pay $10K per year in property taxes while their next door neighbor pays $100K/year.

There’s variations of these tax distortions all over the US. Now apply this to vacation homes and investment properties, plus zoning restrictions….it puts younger buyers at a massive disadvantage.

Homestead deductions require you to declare residency/live there though, so how would any of that apply to vacation homes and investment properties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s because we have stupid “age in place” incentives, which aren’t good public policy.

Being older isn’t an excuse not to pay your share of property taxes (some locales lock taxes in place based on age).

Keeping older people in giant SFHs (which are a finite resource in areas near job centers) is terrible public policy. It’s not environmentally friendly to have one or two people using all these utilities. And as in the case of my aging MIL who refuses to move, it leads to a lot of family stress from falling down the stairs (already had one hospital stay and she continues to go downhill as her giant home falls into disrepair).

Everyone likes to tell younger people you don’t always get what you want, but why can’t we say the same to older people? We as a society shouldn’t have to subsidize them through low property taxes just because they want to sit in their wealth without tapping into equity to pay taxes or move. We shouldn’t be giving tax credits so they can modify their homes to make them adapted to the elderly.

If you want to stay in your big house as you get old then you need to be able to pay for it yourself (taxes, modifications, and all). It’s so hypocritical to tell younger people that if they want something they have to save/pay for it themselves, but then also expect society to help them afford what they want.

I agree, with one caveat. Everyone should absolutely pay their fair share in taxes. But on the other hand, it's understandable that older people who have lived in a house for their whole lives resent having to move. Rather than subsidies, or locking low rates/assessments in place, we should have a program where senior citizens can defer some or all of their taxes until either they move or sell the property, whichever comes first. When that happens, the back taxes become due, along with some reasonable interest.

So no, a senior citizen isn't forces out of their home because they can't afford the taxes. But neither are they absolved from paying what they owe forever.

What you owe depends on current tax policy. Estate tax policy has fluctuated so that some years people pay nothing on their inheritances. If the government wants to free up housing, they need to make it easier for people to afford to move by incentivizing both the owners and the developers so that there are better alternatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Are boomers grandfathered in to low taxes and insurance or something? How on earth could they pay so much lower than the rest of us with similar houses?

When it comes to property taxes, many states (eg, California) and local jurisdictions (eg, DC and thousands of other cities & counties) cap property taxes from appreciating for long time home owners. So if you own your home for a long time, you will pay only a fraction in property taxes of what newer home owners will pay. This is especially true in areas that have seen rapid price appreciation in recent years.

It’s massively market-distorting and keeps older residents in their big homes because they don’t want to pay more in taxes. California tried to alleviate this by allowing older residents to sell their home and apply the original discounted property tax rate to a new property….its had mixed results. But even in California, you have houses in Malibu that are worth $10m but they pay the original property tax on the $300K value when they purchased the property in 1980. So maybe they pay $10K per year in property taxes while their next door neighbor pays $100K/year.

There’s variations of these tax distortions all over the US. Now apply this to vacation homes and investment properties, plus zoning restrictions….it puts younger buyers at a massive disadvantage.

This is insane! So the rest of us are subsidizing boomers?!

[Anonymous]

Proposition 13 is now 48 years old. It wasn't the boomers that put that into place but the Greatest and Silent Generation voters who didn't want to be forced to sell their homes because increasing home values were making their property taxes unaffordable. When we bought our home in 2000, we were paying the highest property taxes in our neighborhood. The property values keep rising with low inventory, corporate investment and foreign investors. Property insurance is becoming unaffordable if you even can get it. How do you keep from forcing people to move from their only home?