Multiple traumatic brain injuries incl skull fracture, didn't finish hi sch but did BSCS, MS engr'ing, MBA. Paid for myself. My ancestry in flags. Oregon home.
Redmond, Oregon, USA
Joined December 2010
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The fertility rate has been in decline for over 200 years except post WW2. (Blue line is raw data, orange is adjusted for mortality - the # of kids who survive to adulthood). The big post WW2 bump ('46-'64) began hitting 65 about 2011. That bump is turning in to the big 65 and up group - and is peaking about now. An estimated half of the "boom" will be deceased by the mid-2030s. That's going to have huge impacts on housing and many other things.
There is a frequent meme on X and in the media, that the "Baby Boom" is hoarding all assets, unlike the past.
But the % owned by age groups is almost the same in 1984 as it is in 2025.
If everyone earned exactly the same amount, paid the same taxes, saved the same %, by retirement, we'd end up with almost the same asset allocation.
Why? More years of saving and compounding interest accounts for almost all of the difference. This should be obvious - people who have saved longer, have saved more.
Second factor is sheer numbers - the Baby Boom accounted for 40% of the population in 1965. In 1984, those 65+ were about 11% of the population, and today they are about 18-20% of the population.
More people, who saved for more years, surprisingly, have saved more. The attached chart is not normalized for the change in group sizes over the decades.
Oregon's 2027 Bronze ACA ObamaCare monthly premiums $2400-$2000/month, $19,000-$20,400 deductible.
In my county there are "2" insurers, but not really. They are owned by the same parent insurer. So monopoly insurance!
ObamaCare has completely failed for reasons I outlined in a 2016 paper. Basically, it merged a huge group of high risk patients into very tiny risk pools, making premiums exorbitant. Pre ACA 35 states ran their own "high risk" insurance programs. All of those very expensive patients were merged into the tiny individual market.
Norway makes "sh*thouses" Great Again!
youtu.be/KMcKmuO6HOE?si=r2Mm…
Great response from Visit Norway.
Cruise ships might not be a good proxy for overall financial situation. I could only find that about 7% of those over age 65 had taken a cruise in the prior 3 years - can't find what % have ever taken a cruise. 34% of the population has taken a cruise at some point, but that includes all ages, which is broader than I expected.
Another thought - cruise ships often appeal to seniors with mobility or health issues, and end up as a "family" trip with adult kids and their families. I have been on a cruise ship 2x and both times it was because an elderly family member wanted "one last trip - with family" and this is what they could do. Cruise ships are not my thing, and I have no desire to go an another, but it worked out well to meet family goals.
We learned a decade ago, its hard to find a single floor home. Everything is 2 levels. Single floor homes are not so common now and that's what elders likely want.
I have not looked at the demographics from 2040 onward. I'm confused at the high % over 65. The % might be because the young cohort is shrinking, making the % of older folks larger.
How big was their house, what were its features and construction characteristics, where was it located?
World population's EFR is following a similar path to many of the countries which have been in decline for a long time.
The US TFR dropped below replacement level within about 3 years of Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb book, and the trend was apparent before his book was published. But his book and public speaking set government policy and media attention for decades.
Locally, 5 major cities in my state have announced numerous school closures, or announced they are planning to close schools, due to the sharp decline in enrollment. One state university may close next year due to enrollment cut in half (2 others have gone up).
This is in sharp contrast to the post WW2 bump - the future is going to be very different.
The Baby Boom was 76 million born 1946 to 1964. The youngest members of the Baby Boom are now 62 or 63.
In 1965, the Baby Boom was gigantic (39% of the US population in 1965, the year after they were all born).
Subsequent generations are a shrinking part of the pie, relative to total population. Today, the surviving Baby Boom, relative to the now larger population, is about 18%.
Subsequent increases in births were surprisingly subdued. 2nd chart shows raw fertility rate, and adjusted for mortality (basically the # of kids who survived to adult hood).
The closure of health care access was announced on March 22, literally at the same time I realized I needed to see a doctor for my foot injury (broken bone, torn tendon). I had to wait months. The news, quoting public health "experts" said we should only seek care if we had chest pain, difficulty breathing, uncontrolled bleeding, obvious fractures, and so on. By June, we were told that protesting was more important than fighting a virus or seeking health care.
I live in the only state out of 50 that shut down access to non-life threatening health care (had to wait 3 months to get my broken foot diagnosed, which thereafter led to years of lower body problems). We had among the longest school closures and highest mask wearing rates in the nation. Almost everyone ended up having Covid at least once by end of 2022, same as everywhere else.
The era of "real estate always appreciates in value" is over.
Half the "Baby boom" generation will be deceased by the mid-2030s. They've got over 10 million homes that will go on the market - that's up to 1+ million per year - over the next decade or so.
Many may be living in older homes, with less amenities, smaller square footage, older designs, that may not appeal to today's lifestyle creep buyers, so there's that too.
Plus the incoming young cohort is smaller than past generations. The housing markets of the past decades are gone, although it might not feel like it for a few more years.
Yes. Housing will be cheaper in 5 years, and here's why:
• Inventory is already at the highest level in over a decade. Existing-home supply hit 4.9 months in August, the highest reading since 2015, and 18 states have now pushed active listings past their pre-2020 baseline.
• Builders are discounting like crazy to compete. They're panicking. They are sitting on a huge backlog of completed, unsold homes and are already cutting prices and offering rate buydowns to move them.
• The boomer sell-off is just getting started, and will only accelerate. ~13.9 million homes held by boomers and the Silent Generation are projected to hit the market over the next decade, a 74% jump in turnover versus the prior decade.
• Rates aren’t “high,” they’re normal-low-ish. The 30-year average has run around 7.5% since records began in 1971. Today’s rate near 7% isn’t a problem, it’s a return to the historical mean after a 15-year anomaly (which caused tons of problems).
• And if rates do fall, it will be counterproductive: a significant rate drop will stabilize or lift prices, not help with "affordability".
• STRs and second homes are coming back into the market, too.
• The “shortage” narrative is industry-sponsored BS, and national data is heavily skewed by a few coastal metros that have unique issues (SF, NYC, Boston, LA).
Overall: supply keeps climbing, rates probably won't change much, and the people telling us otherwise have a direct financial stake in us believing the opposite. At the VERY LEAST we're entering a multi-year period of weaker price appreciation / declines in the majority of regions.
Follow the data, not the PR.
Demographics - the incoming young cohort is smaller than the past, which will impact demand, and the supply for labor (hence today's 4.2% unemployment rate).
Half of the Baby Boom (born 1946-1964) will be deceased by the mid-2030s. In 1965, this group accounted for about 33% of the US population and led to ever rising competition for jobs and housing - leading to the expectation that housing prices would always rise.
This group will soon be vacating homes (perhaps 1+M/year) with a smaller incoming young cohort to buy homes (which may be smaller, older homes, with less features than the types of homes people want today). Things are changing - we already see schools closing due to the shrinking pool of kids.
Will the immigration spigot be turned off or turned back on?
Social Security was always a "pay as you go" system set up based on false expectation the population would always increase (FYI Paul Ehrlich was an idiot whose famous predictions were wrong nearly the year his book was published - but it controlled government policy for decades).
In the 1980s, Congress recognized the funding problem, raised the Social Security retirement age from 65 to 67, raised contribution limits for workers, and the "Baby Boom" ended up funding a "trust fund" and paying for the then retirees (kind of like double paying). However, Congress can't do math and did not understand that the total fertility rate dropped below replacement level in the 1970s. They also ended pension programs by enacting self funded "defined contribution plans" in to law in the 1970s (IRA and 401(k), so that Baby Boom would also have to fund their own retirement.
But again, Congress messed up and the Trust Fund began dwindling as the # of workers also began dropping. The Labor Force Participation rate is now dropping to near the long run rate at 60% (from 65%) as the Baby Boom has left the workforce (90% are now retired or deceased). This drop in the labor force participation rate is according to a Federal Reserve report.
About half the baby boom will be deceased by the mid-2030s (8-9 years from today). Very soon, 1+ million of their homes will hit the market every year, likely ending the upward trajectory of home prices and probably causing many prices to drop.
The labor shortage is going to very good for labor in the coming years.
The IRA and 401(k) were established by Congress in the 1970s, to move away from "defined benefit" to "defined contribution" retirement. The oldest members of the "Boom" are now 81-that prior cohort skews the % having pensions. Those of us at the end of the "Baby Boom", in general, have no pension program and had to save for our own retirement.
The huge bump (1960+/-) entered the work place simultaneously, creating a surplus of labor. See attached "labor force" growth rate chart. The college degree became "the filter" as labor force participation reached 65%. With 90% of the Baby Boom out of the work force, the participation rate is falling back to 60% (per Federal Reserve study).
