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Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Originally Posted by mdovell
Yes but then they leave again. College debt makes living elsewhere more attractive and this brings up transit again. People aren't staying in Boston for the long term. If all students stayed it would be a *much* larger city by any argument.
Doesn't seem like you go out in Boston much. There is NOOOOO shortage of mid 20s to mid 30s something people. The place is packed with them. As in, packed. Sure, some who can't afford it eventually get pushed out. By my mid 40s I was. No biggie, the first person that saw my old place rented it. For every one of those late 30s and 40s somethings that leave there are three trying to get in.
Sincere question: how old are you and what does your social network look like? I'm guessing mid-20's by your comments.
I'm 34, an older millenial, and can tell you that a significant chunk of the 30-somethings in my social network are A) buying homes B) having children, myself included despite a prior DINK path. And to be clear, I am not coming from elite social network - these are auto techs, tradesmen, RNs, OPs/admin, police officers, teachers, etc. Sure, most of these people aren't buying in top tier towns, but they can swing towns like Hudson or the nicer Worcester 'burbs. My wealthier peers (e.g., MEs, EEs, UX/HF, unioned foreman, small biz owners, etc.) can swing towns top tier 495 towns like Bolton, Stow, Harvard, and Boylston as they have household incomes exceeding $200k/yr.
My wife and I are good friends with a fairly high volume realtor in the area and he estimated a good 80%+ of his buyers are older millenials (28-36). They're the primary buyers absorbing current housing stock and, with gen Z being even larger, this problem will get worse before it gets better. Simply put, the boomers will not age out of home ownership faster than gen-Z and young millenials will age in.
IMO, there are enough qualified younger buyers to absorb the slack in the low and mid price points of this market.
Lifestyle choices are a huge factor. I'm 39. By 25 I saw a fair amount married, by 30 kids stated but by 35 divorces happened. Lifetime alimony ended in mass years ago. So the old stigma faded. A friend of mine was going to marry a woman and she ran up 40 Grand in credit card debt and he paid 10 of it off. When they finally got married she ran up another 25,000 and that caused a divorce. He now lives in Maine.
I think we can all generally agree that it's easier for people to move when they're single and have no children. Once marriage comes into play and kids then you talkin about pulling kids out of one school district into another changing jobs changing commutes it gets much more complicated. So if you're looking for professionals that are young and single that's not that hard but when you start asking from mid to Senior Management then it certainly is hard. If you don't provide opportunities for younger people to develop experience you're creating structural gaps in the economic system which means you're going to have to eventually lower the requirements. I've seen this happen for years now instead of 15 years experience it's 10 instead of 10 years experience at 7 instead of 7 years experience it's 5. I've never seen a job opening that requires more than 10 years experience that is currently being posted. Back when the recession was deep I remember the term purple squirrels and companies looking for such an amount of experience at the person probably would have been retired. When people retire they rarely go back into the job market full time.
The other aspect of housing is are these houses safe for aging. My maternal grandmother lived in a house that she inherited from her family and although it was small it was in many respects ahead of its time for design. Nearly everything was on one floor the bedroom the bathroom the kitchen the porch the living room. Now if house is you have multiple floors to 3 maybe even 4 and that might be scattered all across the place. I can tell you in dealing with elderly people stairs are a very strong enemy. There was an American Planning Association article years ago that looked at when people retire and a state-by-state analysis as to when that's supposed to occur and also the movability of people as they age. Generally speaking the amount of moving in and out reaches equilibrium around the age of 65. By the time someone is 80 years old they are not moving. This of course brings up things like Elderly Care Centers and retirement homes but I think it's a pretty safe assurance and not going to see an 80 year old moving cross-country.
My basic premise here is I don't think baby boomers are going to move if they've been in an area a long enough. Of time and continue to afford to live there. It is not so much finances but it's the amount of connections that have been made over an entire generation and thus they pretty much stuck. I have a great on that has been connected to Quincy for probably the past 55 years. Even if she had the initiative so you probably wouldn't move to another part of the country let alone part of the state. Another good source of information for this is people that administer pensions for small towns and cities. They know where these retirees are living. Long ago I had a conversation with a few of them and they pretty much told me that most just stay where they worked.
At the same point though just because people are living in a house doesn't necessarily mean they're maintaining them. As people age they might not hear or see what exactly the problems are and their properties. This can lead to significant Renovations that younger Generations might not always want to deal with. I can tell you that when my grandmother passed we had to sell the house off because in order for us to actually even attempt to rent it out all of the code and the modifications would have ended up in five to six figures that we didn't really have. A return on investment that would take years on end and require hiring management to be there and would have been a much bigger ordeal. It was just simpler to just sell it off.
Of course another factor into this is 40 B. One Trend that I've been seeing across the state is municipal golf courses are closing left and right usually for housing. Expanding Metco could also change things
I'm 34, an older millenial, and can tell you that a significant chunk of the 30-somethings in my social network are A) buying homes B) having children, myself included despite a prior DINK path.
Same observation here. I'm 38 so i'm probably right on the border of gen X/millennial, but when I was house hunting, there were plenty of 30-something couples also at the open houses we were at. Some with a kid or two in tow.
All of my mid/late 30's social group are homeowners. I personally don't know anyone my age that rents. (i'm sure plenty do) Some have kiddos, some are living the DINK lifestyle.
I lived in Boston right after college right in the shadow of Fenway park. I absolutely LOVED it. Now, in my late 30's, you couldn't pay me to live where I used to live. I love suburban living and would love to move even further away. The more trees, the better.
Doesn't seem like you go out in Boston much. There is NOOOOO shortage of mid 20s to mid 30s something people. The place is packed with them. As in, packed. Sure, some who can't afford it eventually get pushed out. By my mid 40s I was. No biggie, the first person that saw my old place rented it. For every one of those late 30s and 40s somethings that leave there are three trying to get in.
Right but that's because of the schools. With immigrants the population would be much lower.
I'm not a liberal by any means but at this point communities have to be friendly to immigration otherwise they're going to see a more systemic decline going forward. And keep in mind this is largely all written prior to the current President coming in.
I'm not a liberal by any means but at this point communities have to be friendly to immigration otherwise they're going to see a more systemic decline going forward. And keep in mind this is largely all written prior to the current President coming in.
I believe the flow of LEGAL immigration is still on upwars trend. I dont think the illegal population is being tracked in boston so who knows...
Btw, as long as the schools continue to be subpar in the city of Boston, suburbs will continue to see healthy demand.
Sincere question: how old are you and what does your social network look like? I'm guessing mid-20's by your comments.
I'm 34, an older millenial, and can tell you that a significant chunk of the 30-somethings in my social network are A) buying homes B) having children, myself included despite a prior DINK path. And to be clear, I am not coming from elite social network - these are auto techs, tradesmen, RNs, OPs/admin, police officers, teachers, etc. Sure, most of these people aren't buying in top tier towns, but they can swing towns like Hudson or the nicer Worcester 'burbs. My wealthier peers (e.g., MEs, EEs, UX/HF, unioned foreman, small biz owners, etc.) can swing towns top tier 495 towns like Bolton, Stow, Harvard, and Boylston as they have household incomes exceeding $200k/yr.
My wife and I are good friends with a fairly high volume realtor in the area and he estimated a good 80%+ of his buyers are older millenials (28-36). They're the primary buyers absorbing current housing stock and, with gen Z being even larger, this problem will get worse before it gets better. Simply put, the boomers will not age out of home ownership faster than gen-Z and young millenials will age in.
IMO, there are enough qualified younger buyers to absorb the slack in the low and mid price points of this market.
When I was late-20s in the bubble before the S&L meltdown and housing correction in 1990, I had that same "I can't possibly afford this" attitude. By 1995, things were far more affordable. I'm not going to try to predict real estate markets but we're due for a recession and housing prices don't go up forever.
Right but that's because of the schools. With immigrants the population would be much lower.
Much of that though, I have to think, is workers on temporary ("temporary"?) work visa, which companies are obsessed with right now. And that's a big part of why Boston is so hot right now - having mass transit is essential to making the logistics work. If you are an employer in the suburbs wanting to hire massive numbers of H1-B's, how are they going to get to the office if it's car only?
When I was late-20s in the bubble before the S&L meltdown and housing correction in 1990, I had that same "I can't possibly afford this" attitude. By 1995, things were far more affordable. I'm not going to try to predict real estate markets but we're due for a recession and housing prices don't go up forever.
Agreed, so please don't translate my comment as me being yet another "home prices only go up" bull. I think the 12-18 month timeline and 20+ year timeline looks rather bearish for U.S. housing, though the latter can be corrected with increased immigration and the former is very hard to time.
I do not, however, prescribe to the notion that prices in the eastern MA suburbs will collapse in the 10-15 year. We're a strong global job market and, as a nation and state, we're approaching peak adult population as gen-Z hits working age, Millenials settle into upper management, and gen-X and younger boomers live longer active lives thanks to modern healthcare. Demand will remain for the next 10+years, but the economy, equity markets, and interest rates will no doubt push the needle in one direction or another.
Much of that though, I have to think, is workers on temporary ("temporary"?) work visa, which companies are obsessed with right now. And that's a big part of why Boston is so hot right now - having mass transit is essential to making the logistics work. If you are an employer in the suburbs wanting to hire massive numbers of H1-B's, how are they going to get to the office if it's car only?
Fyi. Silicon valley (excluding san francisco) has been and still is a car only suburb culture. Public transport has not been an issue outside san Francisco for tech workers
Fyi. Silicon valley (excluding san francisco) has been and still is a car only suburb culture. Public transport has not been an issue outside san Francisco for tech workers
...and that's why the big employers have started their own "public transport" options. There are typically 400 private buses running between San Francisco and the suburbs in Silicon Valley - with many commuting out of the city.
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