*As empty-nester households across the U.S. prepare to downsize, over 20 million homes could become available, helping to ease the nation’s housing shortage—but recent research finds that their appeal to younger buyers is limited.
Zillow defines empty nesters as “residents ages 55 or older who have lived in the same home for 10 or more years, have no children at home, and have at least two extra bedrooms.” Empty nesters are most concentrated in cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Cleveland, while younger generations gravitate toward hubs like San Jose, Austin, and Denver. According to Zillow, empty nesters are leaving behind homes that may be too large or costly to align with what younger buyers are seeking.
“These empty-nest households are concentrated in more affordable markets, where housing is already more accessible — not in the expensive coastal job centers where young workers are moving and where more homes are most desperately needed,” Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, said in the report, per CNBC.
“Unless we see more businesses and workers relocating to the Midwest, the big flow of housing coming is probably not going to do much to help those markets,” Divounguy said.
Divounguy emphasized that building new housing in the cities experiencing the greatest shortages is the “only viable solution for improving housing affordability.”
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