Where are the Homebuyers Going to Come From?

During my lifetime the percentage of American families that own their own homes has increased from about 33% to the current level of 68%. I think that this is an incredible achievement and our industry rightly takes some pride that most of this has been made possible by the ability to finance the purchases with mortgages. I think our industry has done a good job.  Yet we ought to be a little more concerned about how we are going to perpetuate this trend.

I am not much of a demographer but I enjoy immensely considering the future and looking at population trends. The first trend, and most obvious, is that the baby-boomers are now approaching retirement age. As this generation progresses, they will be buying smaller retirement homes, a fact that has been noticed by the homebuilders who are building more retirement communities.

They will also be selling the big family homes that they raised their kids in. But there are fewer people in the generations that come after them, so it seems as if there may too many homes for the next generation of buyers. So the first question is, "Who is going to be buying those homes?"

Here's another statistic. About 40% of today's teen-agers do not finish high school.  In my simplistic world, I think that those who drop out of school are relegated to the poorest segment of our economy, not having the education or job skills for better employment opportunities. They are headed toward manual labor and low level service jobs that pay close to the minimum wage. Bluntly, that's not enough income to qualify for a loan on these big homes that are going to be for sale!

The second question is, "If 32% of people are renters and 40% of the people drop out of school, where are the next generation's homebuyers going to come from?"