
The large percentage of American seniors opting to age in place rather than sell their homes has constricted the availability of homes on the market, CNBC reports.
That stay-put trend is crashing into the rising demand for housing from the huge millennial generation: fewer homes for sale will continue to put upward pressure on already overheated home prices. The reasons more seniors are choosing to stay in the homes where they raised their families are manifold.
"They love their homes, it's their chief investment, they love their neighborhoods and their communities, and they love the control they get in their own house," said Louis Tenenbaum, a housing advocate in Kensington, Md. Tenenbaum notes that 63 percent of the $383 billion spent on remodeling each year is among people over 50 years of age, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing. The trouble is they don't always add features for aging in place.
"If we can shift the remodeling industry to be doing those types of things when they're already remodeling, then we really start to change the housing infrastructure and we create this place were people can enjoy living out their years in their home," Tenenbaum said.
CNBC reports that while a large percentage of elder Americans are opting to age in place, this places a strain on younger buyers searching for homes. Homeownership rates among the millennial cohort is about 8 percentage points lower than previous generations at their age.
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