Some 10,000 Baby Boomers reach retirement every day, exiting a world dependent on jobs and kids and into a new lifestyle that drastically adjusts their housing choices, a commentary by Patrick Simmons, director with the Economic and Strategic Research Group of Fannie Mae, said.
The common perception is that the generation born between 1946 and 1964 is starting to downsize from suburban single-family homes to urban multifamily residences as they become empty nesters.
But this assumption is not true, and in fact, the truth is quite the opposite.
Simmons explained, “Despite these life transitions, one key metric of boomer housing consumption – the proportion of the population residing in a single-family detached home – has yet to decline.”
And instead of the downsizing perception, the percent of Baby Boomers residing in single-family detached homes was at least as high in 2012 as at any time since the onset of the housing crisis.
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