John B. Marek is a writer, farmer, outdoorsman and recovering economic developer. You can find his books at johnbmarek.com. (Image courtesy of Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Recently, a series of articles has attributed some blame for the tight housing market and exorbitant home prices to “Boomers” who stay in their large suburban homes and do not move to “senior adult” communities or downsize to smaller apartments or condos. As one of those Boomers who has little to no intention of selling his 2,400-square-foot, four-bedroom suburban home, I invite the authors of those articles to kiss my derriere. Boomers are not the cause of the problem; we are the victims of the problem.
Since 1950, when Boomers were first a sparkle in their mommy’s and daddy’s eyes, the square footage of the average new single-family home has increased from 983 to 2,657. The post-war tract houses of the 1950s were typically two- or three-bedroom “ranch” designs with one central bathroom. The general philosophy was that having one bedroom for the parents and a separate bedroom for the boys and the girls was good enough. The single bathroom could be inconvenient, but nothing that couldn’t be worked around. This was the type of house I grew up in and I was somehow able to survive into adulthood.
The houses of the ’60s and ’70s tended to be somewhat larger and have an additional bathroom. While the “ranch” floorplan was still the most common, innovative designs like the “split level” were also very popular. By the end of the ’70s the average new home was approaching 2,000 square feet and had three or four bedrooms and two and a half baths. Siblings of the same sex still generally shared a bedroom, although decreasing family sizes often made this unnecessary.
During the ’80s and ’90s the size of the average new home start increased by more than one-third. New construction with fewer than four bedrooms was rare, and by necessity (a 2,500-square-foot ranch house would be unwieldy) most used a two-story “transitional” or “farmhouse” footprint. The idea of siblings sharing a bedroom became less acceptable and a separate bathroom for each bedroom became increasingly commonplace. This is the era during which my house was built.
To the critics’ point, my wife and I and our two dogs do not need four bedrooms, a formal living room or even a dining room. We could live very comfortably (and to a large degree do) on the first floor of our house, especially since our master bedroom is “down.” So why don’t we “cash out” and move to a condo or smaller house and let some “deserving” GenXer and their “exceptional” children take our big ol’ house to which they are entitled? Well, because, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.
Our neighbors across the street are a few years older and have been looking to downsize for several years. They’ve run into the core issue of Boomers who insist on keeping their big ol’ houses; there aren’t many reasonable options. Remember when I said that builders stopped building houses with less than four bedrooms in the ’80s? That means any available “smaller house” is probably 50 years old and very likely in a neighborhood that also shows its age. Few 70-year-olds are up for taking on a maintenance nightmare on a street where the neighbors may or may not maintain a high standard of upkeep and where crime could be a problem. And don’t even get me started on the tax implications.
The other option for Boomers is an “active adult community,” but issues are also associated with those. Although I am sure that lifestyle can be desirable to a particular sort of person, many (and I fall firmly into this camp) view it as stacking old people up like cordwood, biding time until the inevitable bonfire. And there is little “cashing out” to be done when moving to these communities. Due to the “amenities” offered, a simple one-bedroom townhome often costs as much as the big ol’ house the Boomer just sold.
So let’s get one thing straight: The reason Boomers are hanging on to our big ol’ houses isn’t that we’re greedy, or set in our ways or unwilling to accommodate the younger generation. It’s that the construction and real estate markets of the last 50 years have left us with few good options for downsizing and no financial incentive to do so.