More than half of baby boomers who own homes in the United States said they never plan to sell their properties, possibly debunking a forecast made five years ago.
In 2019, Zillow predicted a silver tsunami would occur in the US housing market. Silver tsunami refers to a phenomenon where a wave of baby boomers---those born between 1946 and 1964---put up their homes for sale, leading to a significant growth in supply in the housing market.
While the real estate website originally predicted the silver tsunami to happen in 2037, the forecast seems unlikely as more than half of baby boomers said they never plan to sell their homes, according to a new survey by Clever Real Estate.
Survey Findings
The poll surveyed 1,100 boomers across the US. Among those, 61% said they currently own a home. When asked whether they plan to sell, 54% said they will never list their homes, the survey found.
In comparison, only 15% of boomers said they plan to sell their homes by 2034. Among those planning to sell, 39% said they are doing so to downsize to a different home.
Why Boomers Refuse To Sell
Boomers who said they were not planning to sell their homes gave a variety of reasons. More than half (52%) said their current home already suits their lifestyle needs while 47% said they wanted to age in place.
Financially, 40% of boomers said they have already paid their mortgage and 37% said they plan to leave their homes as an inheritance. Not all financial reasons were positive. A quarter (25%) said they could not afford to buy a new home. At least 16% of boomers also said they were refusing to move because they could not afford the cost of living in an assisted home.
Other reasons cited include not wanting to start over (35%), emotional attachment to the home (22%), community ties and friendship (19%), and not wanting to lose their current mortgage rate (8%).
Most boomer homeowners currently have mortgage rates lower than 6%. As of the week ending Sept. 12, the contract rate for the 30-year mortgage term was 6.2%.
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