A $48T “Structural Shift” to the Housing Market is Only Just Beginning

0:00$48 trillion of real estate could be changing hands soon as baby boomers age and bring their massive inventory of property to the market. Some have called this impending demographic shift the silver tsunami and have claimed it will cause a crash in the housing market unlike anything we've ever seen in the past. But the same people have been saying this for 10 plus years and clearly it hasn't happened. But the situation is changing. Boomers are now on average in their 70s and the generational shift of property and wealth is already starting to happen. We can see it in the data. So will that lead to this long predicted crash?

0:43Will the market shrug it off like it has for the last decade? Today on On the Market, we'll find out.

0:53Hey, everyone. Welcome to On the Market. I'm Dave Meyer, Chief Investment Officer at BiggerPockets. Today on the show, we're addressing a demographic issue facing the housing market as baby boomers, once the biggest generation in the country age and give up the very substantial portion of the housing market that they own in the United States, either because they're choosing to rent, they go into assisted living, or they pass away. And this shift, which I should say is completely inevitable given the demographics and the sad realities of mortality, this shift is going to hit the housing market in a way that aging and people getting older doesn't normally hit the housing market.

1:38It doesn't normally create these structural shifts, but this one probably will. And that is just because of the sheer quantity of housing stock that boomers own. We're gonna get into the details of that a bit later, but for now, you should just know it's a ton. They own way more real estate than you probably think they do. And the generational transfer of these properties, either by selling them or passing them along to their heirs, is going to impact the housing market. But in what ways? Is it going to be a crash? Like all the people calling for this silver tsunami have been saying for more than a decade now.

2:17Does it mean we're gonna have faster sales? Does it mean we'll have slower appreciation? What will this demographic shift actually do to the market? People obviously have very different takes on this. Some people sort of just blow it off and say that the market's going to absorb it. Nothing's really going to happen. On the other end of the spectrum, people are calling for a crash, saying that boomers are all going to sell in a relatively short time period. That's going to create a supply and an inventory spike, and that's going to push down prices. But today on On the Market, we're going to find out what is most likely to happen.

2:50We're actually not just going to spew some hype or blow things off. We're going to dig into the actual data and trends and uncover what this situation will likely bring to the housing market and what it means for investors. We're going to start by laying the foundation. We'll talk about demographic realities and how kind of crazy, insanely concentrated housing is right now in the boomer generation. Next, we're going to talk about the timeline because people have been calling for this generational shift for more than 15 years, at least. I think the term actually started coming around in the 80s, but it started to gain ground in 2008 to 2011 is when Some people really started talking about it.

3:31Clearly, that crash hasn't happened yet. But given the inevitability, when will this actually start? Next, we're going to talk about inheritances, because even if boomers eventually leave their homes, which they will, will it all hit the market? Or are they just going to pass it down to younger generations desperate to get a deal on housing? And then lastly, we'll game out what is actually going to happen or was likely to happen. I'm going to pull it all together for you using historical precedents, examples from other countries, and we're going to bring in the other dynamics of the housing market that we talk about a lot on this show to give you actionable information about this upcoming generational shift so that you can actually do something about it and make decisions about your own portfolio.

4:15With that, let's get to it. So first up, let's just talk about what's going on with demographics. You probably know this, but boomers, biggest generation in the US for a very long time. This was after World War II. There's just a massive spike in births, and this created the largest generation we had ever seen. Actually, as boomers have started to age and unfortunately start to die off, millennials are now the biggest generation. but boomers for a long time were so big that it sort of created this economic force that changed the entire landscape of our country as they reached different periods of their life.

4:50When they were reaching peak home buying age, when they were in their peak earning age, when they were starting to retire, has had huge impacts on our economy. And housing, especially of late, is no different. What the boomers do, because there are just so many of them and they have so much wealth impacts all of us. Just to drill into the housing piece of this, as of now, boomers own 41 % of all US property, which is a lot. For the first time ever, Americans over 70 now own a larger share of real estate wealth than middle-aged Americans, people from 40 to 54. That is not normal. Normally people who are mid-age, who are at the peak of their earnings, who have families, they have the highest concentration of wealth when it comes to real estate.

5:38That has shifted for the first time only recently. Now it's people over 70. That is very unusual. And it's not just mid-life, middle-aged people who are negatively impacted. Actually, if you want what I think is maybe a sadder comparison, if you look at people under 40 years old, they own just 12.6 % of real estate wealth. That is one of the lowest it has ever been and has been completely unchanged for over a decade. So it's not like millennials and Gen Z are catching up. If anything, the opposite is happening where more and more of the real estate wealth is concentrated in older generations. So if we're just tracking the accuracy of these claims about a silver tsunami that's going to crash the market, which I have been consistently hearing for so long, that just hasn't been true as of yet.

6:28Boomers have not been selling in mass and they have largely held on to their real estate. But why? Why are they behaving so differently from other generations? We have some information about this, both from surveys and just some demographic data. The first reason they are not selling and they still hold so much real estate is just lifestyle preferences. Actually, there's a real estate survey from Clever Real Estate. This was just back in 2025. They found that 61 % of boomers, so the majority of boomers, say that they never plan to sell their home. That is up seven percentage points in just a single year.

7:08It went from 54 to 61 in just a single year. And the reason for that, the survey is really good. It dug further into that and asked, why do you plan to never sell your home? And more than half of them said they just want to age in place. They don't want to go into assisted living. They don't want to downsize or find a new home. They just want to age in place. And that's pretty different from other generations. On top of that, 34 % of the people who said that they never will sell their home is because they plan to leave it as an inheritance. And actually, 30 % of them worry that they can't afford a new home.

7:45That's a lock in effect, right? Just impacting everyone across the board. The boomer generation is no different for a lot of people who own their home for a long time. Perhaps they've paid off their mortgage where they have a two or 3 % mortgage rate. it is more expensive for them to downsize. This is something we talk about on the show all the time. This is holding up the housing market a lot right now. And the boomers are experiencing that the same as everyone else. So the point here is that one of the main reasons is people just wanna age in place, right? You see at least a third of boomers saying that they will never sell their home because they are going to age in place.

8:18And that has significant impacts for what's gonna happen in this demographic shift. So that's something we have to keep in mind. But the second reason we haven't seen this flood of inventory on the market is really economic because as boomers started to age, starting to hit retirement age about 10, 12 years ago, for the 12 years they were in their age when they were going from working to retirement, we had this epic run of low mortgage rates and they were able to refinance into very affordable payments even without their salaries, right? even just using Social Security or pensions or pulling out money from their 401k, because rates were so low when they had to make these decisions, they have affordable payments probably locked in.

9:05But that's not all. Actually, less than half of boomers even have a mortgage in the first place. Fifty four percent of them own their homes outright, meaning they are under very little pressure to sell and they have very low cost of living. So unless something forces them to sell, why would you? You've lived in your house probably for 30 years. You've paid off that mortgage. And if it's more expensive to go somewhere else, why would you do that? And so they are under very little pressure to sell. So when you look at these two things together, they don't want to move for lifestyle decisions. And for the most part, they don't have to move because they have the economic wherewithal to stay in place and not sell, that means that this silver tsunami people have been saying is going to crash the market for 10 years has not materialized because boomers have largely held on to their property.

9:57But they're aging. That still happens, right? They keep getting over. And so is the math going to change? And will we finally start to see the impact of this generational shift in the housing market? We'll get to that right after this quick break. We'll be right back. Today's episode is brought to you by Quo, the smarter way to run your property communications. If you love chaos, you can just ignore this message. But if you manage properties and your phone is buzzing more than a disturbed beehive, keep listening. Every call isn't just a call. It's a lease, a maintenance emergency, or someone very passionate about their garbage disposal.

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13:28Welcome back to On the Market. I'm Dave Meyer talking about the generational shift that we're seeing in the housing market where boomers are aging and eventually, although it hasn't happened yet and calls of a crash from a silver tsunami have been way overstated, this is going to happen at some point, right? There is a certain inevitability that boomers are going to die and they're going to pass along their housing either by selling it or passing it down to their children. But that inventory will move in some way or another over the next decade or two, because as of right now, the oldest baby boomers are starting to turn 80 in 2026.

14:05We are seeing that the average baby boomer is about 72 years old. The average lifespan in the United States is about 74. So we are in that time when I think this is probably going to accelerate. And that means that this inventory may finally start to hit the market, right? If more boomers are dying each and every or won't we see all this inventory hitting the market? Well, it could be, but there's also one way that it doesn't actually hit the market. What if they don't sell? What if they just pass along their homes to their children who, I should say, will probably be very grateful for a home with a low basis or potentially even one of those half of boomer homes that actually don't even have a mortgage at all.

14:53This trend of passing along properties to your children is increasing and will play a large role in how big of a quote unquote silver tsunami or generational shift actually hits the market. So let's dig into this for a little bit. I said this at the top of the show, and it is true that this transfer that we are seeing from boomers to millennials or to Gen X is already starting to happen, and it is accelerating. According to Cotality's database, really good data source of property deeds, they showed that in 2025, a record 34 ,000 homes were transferred through inheritance in the 12 months prior to that.

15:32That is actually 7 % of all transfers. So like if you're looking at all movement from one owner to another, 7 % of it is now from inheritance, which may not sound like a lot, but that is the highest share ever recorded. So this is real and it is starting to accelerate. Now, of course, we should mention that's 340 ,000 properties that might otherwise have hit the market, increasing inventory, but it didn't happen. That's kind of the point I'm trying to make here is that a sizable amount of inventory is never hitting the market because it's being inherited. And that is likely to continue. As of right now, 62 % of younger Americans expect to inherit a property.

16:17And if you just presume that's right, which I think some people are going to be very unpleasantly surprised to find out that they don't actually inherit a property. But let's just for now presume that about two thirds of all inventory boomers hold could never hit the market, just pass right on to their children. That will definitely suppress the impact of this demographic shift because inventory may never truly spike. If only a third of boomer owned properties hit the market and that drips out over the next 10 or 20 years, market probably going to absorb it just like it has for the last 10 years.

16:55But of course, there are some caveats there, right? Like I said, I think 62 percent of people inheriting property, probably too high. I imagine that people will be disappointed to find out that even though their parents want to get out of their home, they still have costs like moving into assisted living or they have health care costs and they need to sell their home to actually finance those things. So I think it's probably less than half. But I've looked at a bunch of different surveys. I think it's probably going to be 30 to 50 percent, which is still a lot, right? That's still a ton of inventory.

17:28That's not going to hit a market unless because there are a lot of caveats. here. We talk about 30 to 50 percent of homes just being inherited and never hitting the market. That is a presumption that the people who inherit those properties don't actually just turn around and sell, right, that they hold on to them. And that is another question that we should explore. I actually tried to find data about this and LegalZoom did a survey and found that 42 percent of young Americans don't feel financially prepared to keep and maintain an inherited home. Just think about that for a second. We're talking about what I think most people, at least on paper or in their heads, would dream of as a windfall, right?

18:12You're getting a property either with partially paid off mortgage, maybe an entirely paid off home, owned free and clear. But because property taxes and maintenance costs and insurance costs have gone up so much, 42 % say they don't feel prepared to inherit that home. That's a lot. We actually had a recent guest on Melody Wright who said that she saw that 70 % will sell. I think that number is a little high. I wasn't able to find great data on that, to be honest. But my guess is that even if the historical trend is 70%, like 70 % of people sell when they inherit a home, that that's going to shift.

18:50Like the housing market is just so unaffordable. I don't think there has been ever a more attractive time to inherit a home versus going out and buying one for yourself. I think for most millennials, just speaking as a millennial and how expensive it is for my peers and colleagues and friends to afford homes, I think almost everyone I know would do whatever they can to keep the homes that their parents might pass down to them. Not everyone's obviously getting that, but anyone who might get a home pass down to them, I think are going to try pretty darn hard to be able to hold on to that. So even if it's still a lot, I don't think it's going to be 70%.

19:29I'd say at least 50 % hold on to them. So if we do all this together, right? And again, I am extrapolating a lot of data here. This is not precise, but I'm just saying maybe 50 % of people pass their properties down onto their heirs and then 50 percent of them hold on, that means that 25 percent roughly of the inventory that boomers hold will never hit the market. But that means 75 percent will hit the market. And that is still a lot of property coming to market over the next couple of years. Now, that might sound like the silver tsunami that people have been predicting. But there are three important things to remember here.

20:08First, people aging and downsizing or dying or having someone inherit a home and sell it, that is not new. All the stuff we're talking about are things that happen every day for years. That is always happening. So it's not like we're like, oh, we have normal inventory now. And then as boomers start to die, we're going to have 75 % of their inventory hit the market on top of what we already have. We are already starting to absorb some of this. And although I do think we will see an upward pressure on inventory because of this over the next couple of years, it is not additive. You're not adding all this on top of existing inventory.

20:44It is part of existing inventory. The second thing is that in addition to this being an important part of inventory already, even though this new upward pressure on inventory is coming, it's not like they're going to list all their sales for once. That's why I hate this term, the silver tsunami. It makes it sound like it's this wave that's going to come through and crash everything. But really, what's going to happen is that health decisions or family decisions are going to play out over the next 10 or 20 years. And this will be a long and sustained upward pressure on inventory. But it's not all going to come at once.

21:21Right. I just really don't like this idea of a tsunami. I think it's more like the tide. Right. Like if you think about a tide going in or out, it happens slowly and it happens almost imperceptibly at any given time. But over the long run, the market will change. And I do think that we have this long term upward pressure on inventory, which we'll talk about more in a minute. But that means downward pressure on appreciation when there's more inventory. But just remember, this isn't going to be a vent. It is something that is going to happen over the course of a decade or more. It's already been happening for several years, and it will probably happen for at least 10 more years, according to the data and research I've done.

22:00So that's number two thing to keep in mind here. Number three here is that, as I said at the beginning, even though boomers own a lot of property, they are no longer the biggest generation. Millennials are the biggest generation and millennials are at their peak home buying age. So even though we're going to have this upward pressure on inventory, we also have a demographic tailwind that's working with us. They're sort of counteracting forces, right? The baby boomers were so big, but they're selling, which means there's going to be more supply. But the millennials are even bigger right now, and they're buying, which means that a lot of that inventory could get absorbed.

22:41Now, it's going to be different in different kinds of markets. It's going to be different for different asset classes, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But those are sort of the big picture things I want everyone to remember here. Yes, more inventory probably will come to the market over the next five to 10 years. but there are many reasons to believe this isn't going to be a one-time crash. And that's because boomers have already been selling for several years and it hasn't caused a crash. They are not going to do it all at once. This is going to stretch out for a decade or more. And we have demographic tailwinds helping us because millennials are now the biggest generation in the US.

23:17So it's not a tsunami. There's no single event that's gonna come and rock the real estate market. But what will happen? What does this mean for real estate investors? We'll get to that after this quick break. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off, and suddenly your day is all cleanup, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on Bill to streamline their finances.

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