The Family That Buys Together. NewsWire

NewsWire: 7/30/21

• Multigenerational living situations are giving families more buying power in the red hot housing market. It’s yet another reason that the multigenerational home trend isn’t going to fade anytime soon. (The New York Times)
• NH: I’ve written several times about the rise in multigenerational living since the start of the pandemic, as well as its benefits. (See “Americans Are Happy in Their Multigenerational Homes,” “Is the Stigma Against Living at Home Finally Fading?”, and “Multigenerational Homes Are Smoking Hot.”) Americans are enjoying closer relationships with their families and are able to help each other more, whether it’s sharing daily chores or offering childcare and eldercare.
• This piece covers yet another benefit: financial help. As of May, the national median existing-home price is at a record high (around $350K), and the supply of entry-level housing is at a five-decade low. In many regions, there just aren’t enough starter homes to go around for Millennials. So multiple generations are pooling their money to purchase otherwise unaffordable properties that can house them all.
• I say this because multigenerational living is often portrayed as a short-term response to sudden hardship--for example, Covid-19 or a recession. The assumption is that once the emergency is over, families will separate again. Recall Gen-X "boomerang" youth back in the 1990s? Neither parents nor kids expected that to last long.
• But the Millennial era is upon us. Parents and their adult children are starting to view this a long-term lifestyle, encompassing new careers and grandkids under one roof and joint financial relationships that extend beyond the death of one or both parents.
• Multigenerational living may slacken a bit as the economy improves, but it's not going to ratchet back to its pre-pandemic level, which was already at a historic high. It’s a whole new way of thinking, and we had better get used to it.