Between baby boomers and millennials, the housing industry in the United States is becoming a bit of a battle as boomers and lacking the needed inventory for retirement homes and millennials seek the limited stock of larger homes needed to grow their family. However, this means all good things for the residential remodeling industry as boomers with no mortgage payments turn to home improvement experts to age in place.
According to Yahoo! News, Last year, existing home sales fell to their lowest level in almost three decades; nobody was selling their home or buying. And apart from there being no financial incentive to sell, boomers are aging in place because they can. In doing so, they’re remodeling and improving their current homes—not only for safety but to live comfortably and luxuriously, Finnigan previously explained.
For some baby boomers, the idea of renovating their family home—albeit likely too big for their empty nesting—is much more appealing than moving. Plus, there’s a housing crisis for baby boomers who try to move with a shortage of retirement homes. More than half of them have no plans to move, although the majority of them have lived in their current homes for more than a decade, according to a 2024 report by home improvement company Leaf Home and Morning Consult.
And some baby boomers have spent tens of thousands of dollars—and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars—on home renovations to make their homes feel more updated, comfortable, and safe for aging. A Californian couple in their seventies, Brenda Edwards and her husband, spent more than $100,000 on home renovations to accommodate a wheelchair in case they ever need one.
