Baby boomers no more likely to buy another residence than their parents.
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There’s a popular notion that baby boomers are making a habit of living like Laginess—buying second homes either on oceanfronts, lakeshores, mountains or lively urban downtowns. Some people are snapping these homes up now in part as investments, perhaps to be sold at significant profit to a retiring boomers. But Gary Engelhardt, a Syracuse University economics professor, says the notion of these waves of buyers is largely a myth. And he warns people to beware of investing based on hype that seems questionable. |
In research done in conjunction with the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Radian Group credit risk management company, Engelhardt found that only a small proportion of older Americans have second residences, and there is no greater tendency by baby boomers than the previous generation to indulge in second homes. And there is actually more movement between suburbs by empty-nesters than into urban playgrounds. Only a tiny fraction of suburban empty-nesters are moving to the city, Engelhardt said. ‘’Suburbanites like the suburbs,'’ he said. Engelhardt scoured government data from the 2004 Health and Retirement Study, the 2005 Current Population Survey and 2000 Census to measure mobility by early baby boomers — people born between 1946 and 1955. The surveys do not yet capture activities by younger boomers, so Engelhardt can’t be sure what they will do.
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