A recent post on X by MacroEdge, an economic data organization, was at once jarring and unsurprising. From 1960 to 2025, the number of 30-year-olds who owned a home and were married has dropped from 52% to 12%. But the overall home ownership rate has risen, going from 62% in 1960 to 65% now, while home sales are up, due largely to Boomers buying multiple homes. This discrepancy is not an accident, but the outcome of a protectionist system that Boomers themselves have built.
The Boomer generation has for decades been lead architects of land-use policies that restrict home supply. This creates an artificial shortage that renders housing as a good investment – albeit one that only Boomers can afford. This fuels the rather jarring generational difference in home purchasing statistics.
Let’s start with the latter group, defined as those born between 1981 and 1996: the Urban Institute tracks a decline of around 4% from 1990 to 2021 in homeownership by young adults. Even if Millennials have moved out from their parents’ home, they’re mainly living with roommates or renting. The Institute notes that while lower marriage rates play a role, the phenomenon isn’t fully due to cultural shifts. Housing costs keep growing, both in terms of purchase prices and rising interest rates, and because wages haven’t kept up. The Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index finds that since 2012, home prices have risen a whopping 7.2% on average annually, while wages have only risen 3.3%/year over that time. It’s a reality that’s weighing on generational morale and economic prospects.
For older generations, though, prospects are the opposite. According to a recent National Association of Realtors report, Baby Boomers made 42% of all home purchases despite comprising only 20% of the population. Millennials represented 29% and Gen Xers 24% of all purchasers. Overall, there’s a 44-point gap between homeownership between Boomers and Millennials, which is all the more notable given that those younger groups are in their prime home-buying years, while Boomers would, theoretically, be downscaling or moving into retirement complexes.
Much of this is due to Boomers buying multiple investment properties, avoiding high interest rates via all-cash purchases. These cash purchases, according to the Realtors Association, account for nearly half of all Boomer purchases.
There is of course nothing wrong with housing investment, but in this case it’s a zero sum game, since the purchases by Boomers naturally reduce available housing stock for younger generations. And that is a system that Boomers themselves concocted.
The generation has long viewed housing as an investment vehicle for which prices should always rise. When, for example, prices dropped severely during the 2007 Great Recession, that was framed by the media and government not positively, as a buying opportunity for younger people, but as a “crisis” that needed to be fixed using a decade-plus of loose monetary policy.
But it plays out at a more granular level in local politics, where high housing costs are seen covertly as a good thing by older people who work within governments and happen to own homes. While a diverse coalition of groups sometimes oppose new construction, numerous local and national surveys find that Boomers are more likely to than Millennials.
This is ultimately a story of the rent-seeking and perverse incentives that are caused by government regulation. It certainly is not behavior that is exclusive to Boomers.
But it is having major downstream effects on U.S. politics and the economy. Renters paying exorbitant amounts have less discretionary income to spend. Businesses find it harder to recruit workers. Young adults priced out of homeownership are delaying family formation.
In turn, the perceived failure of the “American dream” – and that’s really what is implied by the above chart – fuels political radicalism. Angered by their diminished prospects, younger generations embrace radical redistributionist ideas (their past failures notwithstanding).
There’s hope to make the situation better. Various U.S. jurisdictions – often led by younger councilors or government staffers – are embracing pro-housing policies, albeit ones that have proven marginally effective. Notable examples include California’s state housing bills and the citywide rezoning of Minneapolis. Legalizing more types of housing is vital for boosting the prospects of younger generations. Even if it means disrupting a major wealth source for older ones.
Cover image use authorized under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
