Boomer Home Sales Will Boost Housing Supply in D-FW and U.S.
Millions of baby boomers are expected to sell their houses over the next two decades.
A persistent shortage of affordable homes for sale has hammered housing markets across the country and in North Texas. But a new forecast points to a wave of home inventory that will be hitting the market here in the coming years as aging homeowners sell out. Housing analysts with home marketing firm Zillow are calling it a “silver tsunami” as baby boomers put their homes up for sale during the next couple of decades. Almost a quarter of U.S. homes could be up for grabs as millions of boomers transition to retirement housing or the graveyard. Zillow estimates that as many as 20 million houses will hit the market by the mid-2030s.
“After a decade of increasingly tightening housing inventory, a flood of homes will come on the market in the next 20 years as baby boomers age — enough to affect local economies in traditional retirement areas,” Zillow’s Alex Lacter said. “In the Dallas metro, we estimate that 21% of homes will become available by 2037. “In much of North Dallas, that number jumps above 30%.”
A chronic lack of homes for sale has dogged the D-FW home market for the last few years. The inventory shortage has been fueled by a surge in investment activity, which has gobbled up low- and moderate-cost homes. Plus, builders have been constrained in construction of new houses. A decade after the Great Recession, D-FW single-family home starts are still more than a third below where they were in 2006.
Currently there is less than a three-month supply of preowned homes listed for sale with North Texas real estate agents. That’s about half of what is considered a balanced market. The flood of boomer houses expected to hit Texas markets is much less than in some areas of the country. “Retirement hubs like Florida and Arizona are likely to feel the sharpest impact. If demand erodes because fewer people choose to retire there in the coming years, those areas might end up with excess housing,” Zillow analysts predict. “Also heavily impacted will be regions like the Rust Belt, which saw younger people move away in recent decades, leaving older generations to make up a larger share of the population.
“Some regions will be far less affected,” the report says. “These include Salt Lake City, where a much smaller share of homeowners are in their golden years, as well as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas and Houston — all of which are vibrant but relatively inexpensive places that tend to attract younger residents looking for an affordable alternative to expensive coastal cities...”
