Baby-boomer homeowners got rich from skyrocketing house prices. Now they can't find retirement housing.
Baby-boomer homeowners got rich from skyrocketing house prices. Now they can't find retirement housing.
I've always held to the maxim; boomers are real, other generations aren't
The boomer phenomenon is the result of specific and unique circumstances, the aftermath of a World War, the US controlling half of world production, entire populations poisoned from birth by lead and other toxins, the advent of nuclear weapons
Homeowners who oppose new and denser housing in their neighborhoods are a major reason so many American communities are short on homes. Those who oppose building are disproportionately older homeowners. While boomers didn't create many of these not-in-my-backyard laws that restrict housing construction, in many cases, they've protected such regulations, dominating the attendance at community board meetings and fighting housing projects.
Wow, the problem was old rich assholes the whole time
Many older homeowners — particularly the growing number who still have mortgages — are struggling with rising insurance premiums. Nationally, home-insurance premiums rose by an average of 21% from May 2022 to May 2023, Policygenius, an insurance marketplace, found. Insurance companies are increasingly dropping customers and pulling out of entire regions, particularly those hardest hit by climate-related disasters.
The Harvard report noted that places retirees had flocked to in recent decades like South Florida and Arizona also face some of the most severe climate-related impacts, including regular flooding, fires, and extreme heat.
The planet is dying, but on the plus side, The Villages might get wiped off the map
Like a fucked up Yankee Atlantis, a mythic "civilization of the forebears" lost beneath the waves
My parents' house they bought in the 90s has quadrupled or quintupled in value, but unfortunately for them they have so many medical expenses in their old age, that even selling the house won't cover their living expenses as they become more elderly and need more and more care. It's a significant source of stress for my family, and I imagine it will only become a more common story as boomers continue to age
real crumbling society hours
That's the irony of rising house prices, your house may have doubled but so did the price of every other house
When you cash in and sell where are you gonna live, when the price of other homes are the same or higher than yours
Even if you settle for sub-strandard cheaper homes those are expensive too and unless you made close to a million or more on the sale your wealth is still gonna take a huge hit, to say nothing of buying homes people actaully WANT to live in, in which case you'll lose most of that liquid wealth you spent decades sitting on
Of course they could always try their hand in the house flipping racket, but that's kinda of a young man's game now, considering all the distracting hospital visits these embrassed millionaires will be making in the coming years
It's almost like capitalism is starting to suck even for the people who "bought into" it
The smart ones would take their money and leave the US
I think they usually end up being land leaches in poorer countries, but I might be wrong
I see the "We moved to this central American country. It was very affordable but the locals hated us for no reason. So now were back in Ohio" articles all the time. The people always move to save money but end up being gentrifiers.
Or leeching the healthcare system of some poor Asian country they probably bombed way back. Just
jet-settler entitlement.dang
the house we just bought went from like 80k in 2016 to 200k now isn't that neat
More or less the same here - anything that's a lil bit bigger and not a wreck is like 350+ so I guess I'll die here in this little shack
American reaction summarised in 1 picture
Comeuppance and all that, but good lord I just want homelessness to stop being a thing. It's such a solvable problem, but no, we get commodified housing and legions of petty landlords and now mega-landlords like Blackrock.
Mao may be dead, but so are all the landlords he let the citizens kill, and China still reaps the benefits to this day.
Obligatory "the maoist uprising against the landlords was the largest and most comprehensive proletarian revolution in history, and led to almost totally-equal redistribution of land among the peasantry" lol