Who Will Buy Baby Boomers' Homes?

A recent report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies forecasts that the remodeling industry will remain robust over the next ten years. The growth will be driven, as ever, by the Baby Boomer generation, 80 percent of whom own homes, and two-thirds of whom have expressed a desire to “age in place.” This means that many of them are modifying their living quarters to include such “universal design” features as wider doors and hallways to accommodate wheelchair use.

Boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—are a plentiful and relatively affluent lot; they’ve steered economic trends for decades. But as the oldest members of the generation amble into their 70s, housing analysts are wondering who will take up the mantle of remodeling—and home ownership—when they’re gone. Hopes are often pinned on the generation that last year overtook Boomers as the country’s largest: Millennials.