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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I live in an expensive in-city neighborhood on the west coast. What we’re finding out here is that boomers who are not downsizing in price and downsizing minimally in size are the ones who are buying. Our neighborhood has traditionally been university professors and medical professionals, and recently has been dominated by tech workers with young children. While many families want to move here because of the housing stock and ok school, plus a few neighborhood amenities that are rare in our area, the few houses that are selling are ALL going to 70-80 year olds who are relocating to be near their adult children. The adult children all live in slightly less nice nearby neighborhoods. The boomers who are relocating and buying may be downsizing because they’re buying 2000-3500 sq ft houses after living in 4000 sq ft houses on the east coast, but they’re clearly paying cash and are probably not paying any less than what they sold for. Our zoned elementary is shrinking fast and soon there will be rezoning to pull in kids from crowded, more affordable areas

Our newest neighbors just moved here from northern VA and they’re 1 of 4 older couples in our 10-block area who have done that. And nothing else is really going on the market because the existing boomers have nowhere to go, so our neighborhood feels like a 55+ community. [/quote]

If they are 70-80, in ten years, they will probably not be able to stay in those homes and their children will upsize or they will sell and the younger families will purchase the homes. [/quote]

Maybe, maybe not- I‘m the PP who wrote about this in my neighborhood and I can tell you about the flip side. Many of my DD’s classmates’ parents have moved into their childhood homes and their parents now spend most of their time in 2nd houses and maintain basement apartments or MIL suites in the original house. It’s one of the ways few younger people are breaking into the neighborhood, and of course it comes with a lot of literal and figurative inherited privilege.

The darker side of people aging in place is that we have more than a few houses where 90+ year olds live in varying degrees of health. Some are doing great and I’d love to be them one day! Some are not but have all of their wealth wrapped up in their house and stay on until the very last minute, which means their houses are basically collapsing around them and they cash out to fund assisted living. I get anxious when I haven’t seen some of these people outside in a while or see lots of leaves gathering on their car. Then developers buy their crumbling houses (because no one else can maintain a second residence while waiting out 2+
years of permitting and construction) and they build really hideous new builds that languish until someone relocates from SF, NYC or London who is desperate to buy.[/quote]

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