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- Millennials and baby boomers tend to make very different lifestyle choices, from marriage and family to how they spend their money.
- The two generations also have different tastes in homes.
- Millennials aren’t buying the large, elaborate houses built by baby boomers in "Sunbelt" states like Arizona, Florida, and the Carolinas, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- These houses end up sitting on the market and selling at massive price cuts.
It’s well-documented that millennials tend to make different lifestyle choices than baby boomers do, from waiting longer to get married and have children to spending their money on health, wellness, and experiences rather than material goods.
But baby boomers and millennials also want very different types of houses, and it’s creating a major problem in the real-estate market.
Fifteen years ago, boomers were building large, elaborate houses in states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina, The Wall Street Journal reported. Now, faced with the effort of maintaining such houses, they’re looking to downsize.
The only problem? Young people aren’t interested in buying their houses, according to the Journal.
"Homes built before 2012 are selling at steep discounts — sometimes almost 50%, and many owners end up selling for less than they paid to build their homes …" Candace Taylor wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Boomers are looking to downsize — but millennials aren’t interested in their homes
"These days, buyers of all ages eschew the large, ornate houses built in those years in favor of smaller, more-modern looking alternatives, and prefer walkable areas to living miles from retail," Taylor wrote.
Younger buyers are also disinterested in outdated interior design.
"Design trends have shifted radically in the past decade," Taylor wrote in the Journal. "That means a home with crown moldings, ornate details and Mediterranean or Tuscan-style architecture can be a hard sell, while properties with clean lines and open floor plans get snapped up."
In addition to their love of open floor plans, millennials are known for being partial to minimalist, low-maintenance designs and sleek, discreet appliances — elements not always found in older homes.
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Another hurdle for boomers looking to sell is that most younger buyers want to buy modern, newly constructed homes to avoid paying for renovations or plumbing and electric issues, according to a 2018 report from Nationwide Mortgage.
It’s also much harder for millennials to buy homes at all
Millennials are often seen as a generation of renters, but many of them actually want to buy homes — it’s just much harder for them to do so.
Millennials buying their first home today are likely to pay 39% more than baby boomers who bought their first home in the 1980s, Business Insider’s Hillary Hoffower previously reported.
Read more: Millennials are buying a lot more homes than you think
The generation is also facing record levels of student-loan debt, making it hard to take on a mortgage loan, as Business Insider’s Akin Oyedele reported.
When millennials can finally afford to buy a home, it makes sense that they’d hold out for something that’s exactly to their taste.
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See Also:
- Millennials are choosing to face 2-hour commutes instead of paying exorbitant rates to live in cities, and it’s resurrecting a near-dead part of the suburbs
- 11 stunning island and beachfront homes for sale across the US for under $1 million
- From Converse to Air Jordans, sneakers have been a status symbol for decades — but millennials are redefining what that means in 3 major ways
SEE ALSO: 11 things millennials do completely differently from their parents
DON’T MISS: 5 millennials who became homeowners in their 20s share their best advice for buying your first house
Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Katie Warren)