This is an assertion to create a strawman argument to justify bad journalism: Boomers were supposed to downsize. They are buying bigger homes instead. (link to MSN, which will expire eventually – WSJ link Boomers Were Supposed to Downsize. They Are Buying Bigger Homes Instead. – WSJ)
There is no basis for asserting that “Boomers” must downsize and in fact, as seen below, there has never been a time that retirees generally downsized at retirement. This is a media myth.
Some background facts:
- They define “large home” as having 3 or more bedrooms
- About 85% of all single family homes in the U.S. have 3 or more bedrooms; there are very few “small” homes. Everything has been supersized in recent decades. Nearly all detached homes, in fact, are “large homes” by their own definition!
- About 55% of multi-family housing is 3 or more bedrooms.
- About 90+% of the Baby Boom is now retired, or is deceased (15-20%). In less than 9 years, by 2035, half of the Baby Boom will have passed away.
- The Baby Boom was enormous – it spanned 18 years unlike (generally) 15 years of other generations, and second, the fertility rate during the Boom peaked at about 3.6 – versus today’s 1.6. The effect was at its peak, the Baby Boom accounted for 30% of the US population, while the following Gen X was only 15%.
- Today, the average square feet per person in a home is almost 1,000 square feet per person, compared to about 300 square feet per person when the Baby Boom was growing up.
- Older Baby Boom home residents are, already living in smaller homes per the data (see below).
This occurred because, when they bought their homes, the average home in the U.S. was typically much smaller than today. Here’s a chart of average new home sizes by decade. Further, many small homes of the past no longer exist because over time, they were remodeled, updated and enlarged.
Current NAR data shows – in fact – that older buyers make up a larger share of “starter homes” – which they define as being lower priced homes. The chart at right shows the median age of “starter home” owners – which you can see has shifted older, to 59.4, up from 52.8 twenty years ago. That imnplies older buyers are the one’s buying cheaper “starter homes”, oddly enough.
The WSJ story teller uses this quote: “The historic retirement play of sell your home and buy a smaller one just isn’t happening“. This quote is 100% untrue (facts no longer matter in the media).
“downsizing by selling a larger family home and buying a smaller one was never a dominant or “historic” retirement norm for most people, though it has long been promoted as one.
Data from multiple sources shows that the majority of older homeowners have tended to stay put rather than systematically downsize, both historically and today. The idea persists as a media/financial advice trope because it sounds logical (empty nest + lower costs + equity release), but behavior doesn’t match the hype.”
For many reasons, selling and moving into a smaller home may make little sense due to capital gains taxes, the cost of fixing up a home for sale, the costs of the sale itself (realtor commissions), and the costs of moving (which may include hiring professional movers to pack, transport and unpack household goods), the possibility of moving away from the neighbors and services they know, and so on.
A couple of surveys found that about 1/3 of Boomer sellers did, in fact downsize, while about 1/3 bought slightly larger homes, almost always, they said, to accommodate family visits.
While I did not see this quote in the story, the social media post about it compared 28% of Baby Boomers living in “large homes” (defined as 3 or more bedrooms) to just “16% of Millennials with children” are in large homes.
Cue outrage! How unfair! The Baby Boom is screwing Millennials!!!!!!
There is a whopper of sleight of hand in making that claim! And its not true!
About half of Millennials have children. Since each generation, in 2026, accounts for about 20% of the population, they have compared 20% (Baby Boom) to 10% (Millennials with children) and – surprise – the ownership rate for “large homes” (3 or more bedrooms) was the same ratio – 28%:16%. But they highlight the 16% percentage as some how being “unfair” even though the ownership rate is exactly the same.
This is bad journalism, sloppiness or lack of critical thinking skills. While Andrew Kaczynski is not the author of the WSJ story telling butt is a CNN politics reporter. Neither he nor the WSJ reporter, Rachel Louise Ensign, saw the problem.
Was this an accident or deliberate? Numerous media stories have taken an active role in fostering intergenerational conflict stories, based on bad data, bad assumptions, bad analysis and bad thinking. The media has adopted a narrative that Gen Z has it the worst in history in the worst economy in the worst country in the world, and the Baby Boom had it easy, never had any challenges, had the world handed to them and public policy should confiscate the assets they saved for retirement (as Congress directed them to save when shifting away from pensions to defined contribution/savings/investing IRA and 401(k) retirement programs).
These mistakes do not appear accidental but deliberate.
The media appears to have declared war on the Baby Boom – people who did not choose their own birth date. It’s the same type of thinking that drives the ‘isms: racism, sexism and ageism. We will see more examples of Baby Boomer stories, based on nonsense reporting, over the coming days.
