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DS News Webcast: Monday 6/16/2014

A recent blog post from Trulia's Jed Kolko looked at whether baby boomer downsizing could be a future trend in the housing market. Kolko examined data to project if baby boomers would sell their single-family homes in order to move into multi-unit buildings. He believes that this shift away from single-family homes is unlikely for two reasons: baby boomers are still years away from the age of downsizing, and long-term trends reveal that older households are less likely to downsize than older adults in previous years.

He cites a University of Minnesota study which found that baby boomers are less likely than almost any other age group to live in multi-unit buildings as opposed to single-family homes. The only age group less likely than baby boomers to downsize is 70 to 74 year olds. He found that just 25 percent of households headed by 80 to 84 year olds live in multi-unit buildings, and even among households headed by adults aged 85 and older, only one third live in multi-unit buildings.

The Obama Administration released its Housing Scorecard for May which showed progress, noting growth in key indicators such as increasing equity and a rebound in the sale of new and existing homes. Homeowner equity was up nearly $795 billion in the first quarter of 2014, totaling more than $10.8 trillion. HUD also celebrated new home sales, which were up 6.4 percent in April. Existing-home sales finally saw the year's first positive increase, jumping 1.3 percent from March to April.

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