20.9 Million Empty-Nest Households in the US Not the Answer to Housing Affordability, Say Analysts

A "for sale' sign is posted in front of a single-family home in Hollywood, Fla., on Oct. 27, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Those expecting “empty-nest” households to flood the inventory-starved housing market like a “silver tsunami” and help make homes more affordable in the near future will be disappointed, according to new research and the opinions of some industry analysts.

According to online real estate marketplace Zillow, the term empty nesters refers to those ages 55 and older living with no children and with at least two extra bedrooms who are remaining in place for at least a decade.

The company’s new study found that as of 2022, there were roughly 20.9 million empty-nest households in the United States—about 2.6 times the 8.1 million families needing their own homes.

However, “data indicates that this demographic will unlikely make a meaningful impact over the coming years, especially in the most expensive markets,” a report on the study stated.

The study found that seniors are choosing to stay put, even though many of their homes have become too large now that they have reached empty-nest status. This trend is limiting potential inventory, leaving it insufficient to meet the immediate housing needs in markets with limited availability.

Meanwhile, most empty-nest households are in affordable markets where housing is already more accessible, but these homes are often far from the areas where many young workers currently prefer to live.

Economy Keeping Seniors From Moving

Keith Gumbinger, a real estate analyst who has worked in the mortgage and real estate industry since 1984, told The Epoch Times that one of the barriers to seniors selling their homes is that they can’t afford to move to warmer areas such as the Southeast or the West because doing so is too expensive. So they’re staying put. And the ones already there have no plans to uproot their homesteads either.

“With regard to a supposed ‘silver tsunami,’ you just can’t find the numbers to support this,” Gumbinger said. “Seniors in this country who are part of the graying of the South and the West, like Florida, Arizona, and the Gulf States, aren’t leaving. The folks more inclined to move may have already done so, and the ones less inclined are staying in place where their families are.”

New research titled “The Great Reshuffling Revisited” from RentCafe supports this theory. The study found that 24 million Americans relocated in 2023, with 15 percent moving for better homes and 13 percent because of a new job or transfer. However, only 1.4 percent moved because of retirement.

Gumbinger said he believes that the most significant factor causing boomers to stay put comes down to the current economic climate.

“You’d have to have a reasonably favorable home interest rate and a drop in home prices for that to happen, and we haven’t seen that combination in at least four years,” he said.

“There has to be someplace for them to go, and we need a better combination of market conditions for everyone. Incomes need to rise and prices have to level off, and that’s going to take some time.”

Senior Homeownership Trends

Some of the most thorough research on senior homeownership trends came in 2021 from university professors Gary V. Engelhardt at Syracuse University and Michael D. Eriksen at Purdue University. In their proprietary research, shared with The Epoch Times, the two scholars found that nearly half of Americans die as homeowners in their later years.

The research found that the homeownership rate for living, non-institutionalized seniors peaked at age 72—at 70 percent—but remained flat until age 80, when the percentage began to decrease.

“Even for my parents who want to remain homeowners, I’d love them to move, but not now because of interest rates,” Eriksen told The Epoch Times.

However, he said that those blaming seniors partly for the U.S. housing inventory shortage have a point.

“We can’t blame (former President Barack) Obama anymore. You have to blame the boomers. Clearly, there’s some seniors overconsuming space and houses desirable for the next generation,” Eriksen said.

According to Zillow, when and if seniors decide to move and downsize their homes, it will disproportionately affect cities such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New Orleans, Detroit, and Buffalo, New York. Its study found that younger residents have decided to leave those areas to pursue better job opportunities elsewhere, leaving the older generations with a larger share of the remaining homes.

According to the study, those cities showed the most significant gap between a potential housing supply from empty nesters and the demand from younger residents.

Whether those properties are desired or not, Detroit-area real estate broker Kelly Finley of New Century Realtors said the seniors in her area aren’t going anywhere.

“I’m certainly not seeing a tsunami. There’s just not a lot of inventory here at all. I think it’s a great time to sell because of that, but the seniors aren’t moving because they don’t have to,” she told The Epoch Times.

“We work with everyone from first-time homeowners to those at retirement age. I don’t think the retirees are holding off from selling. They just don’t want to move.”