Boomers are not moving out of their big homes, here’s why | CNN Business
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After 33 years and four children, Baby Boomers Marta and Octavian Dragos say they feel trapped in what was once their dream home in El Cerrito, California.

After 33 years and four children, Baby Boomers Marta and Octavian Dragos say they feel trapped in what was once their dream home in El Cerrito, California.

Both over 70, the Dragos are empty nesters, and like many of their generation, they’re trying to figure out how to downsize from their 3,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home.

“We are here in a huge house with no family nearby, trying to make a wise decision, both financially and for our well-being,” said Dragos, a retired teacher.

But selling and downsizing isn’t easy, appealing or even financially advantageous for many homeowners like the Dragos family.

Many Boomers whose homes have surged in value now face massive capital gains tax bills when they sell. This is a kind of tax on the profit you make when selling an investment or an asset, like a home, that has increased in value.

Plus, smaller homes or apartments in the neighborhoods they’ve come to love are rare. And with current prices and mortgage rates so high, there is often a negligible cost difference between their current home and a smaller one.

  • krashmo@lemmy.world
    129·
    11 months ago

    It’s fine to be frustrated with the housing market but it seems like you’re directing that frustration at these people as if they’re responsible for it and that’s not really the case. You’re making a lot of assumptions about their motivations that don’t seem fair to me. Get angry at real estate investors, lobbyists, and politicians, not two random people trying to sell their house.

    • AlteredStateBlob@kbin.social
      21·
      11 months ago

      I appreciate the “all sides of the conversation” approach, but their gripe is with having to pay taxes on completely bonkers returns. That’s not a surprise for anyone.

      • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
        210·
        11 months ago

        That’s not what the article says.

        Sure, they’d make a lot of money selling their house. But if it’s your only residence, you can’t just sell your house unless you’re willing to move away from your home, potentially any remaining family, etc. Places a lot of people have lived for generations.

        Because you have to buy another home. And the article states that mortgage rates are ridiculous, house prices are very high for all homes, they simply can’t find smaller homes in a lot of cases because builders are primary building huge houses, and the capital gains tax is impacting single-family houses in a way it wasn’t designed for. They are essentially trying to downsize and coming out worse or the same as if they stayed in too large of a house.

        This is bad for everyone: people can’t downsize, people who want/need larger homes can’t find any on the market, builders continue to think big houses are what people want and keep only building them, people can’t move into/out of neighborhoods causing them to stagnate, etc.

    • betheydocrime@lemmy.world
      112·
      11 months ago

      The reason they’ve earned some frustration is not because they bought a house in SoCal the 90s. The reason they’ve earned some frustration is because after living in a house in SoCal for 33 years and raising four children in it, they felt like they wouldn’t earn “enough” money from reselling it. This feeling of entitlement was so strong that they complained to an international news corporation about it.

      Even if they didn’t create the unjust system, they clearly benefit from it and will do whatever it takes to get what they consider to be their piece of the pie. They want the real estate system to work as designed-- because how else would they get their money?

      The thing that really gets me is that one of them is a retired teacher. He dedicated his life to helping young people. He’s got to be educated enough to do some self-reflection. But this mindset that he has about real estate and profit is destroying the world for the same exact people he’s worked so hard to help.

    • Dr. Dabbles@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      11 months ago

      You vastly misunderstood what I was talking about. They are greedy. They want to realize those gains and not pay taxes. Greed. This has nothing to do with anything else. They were happy to see the value go up as high as possible until they realized they need to pay their fair share. I’m angry at them for being greedy.

    • ShadowRam@kbin.social
      31·
      11 months ago

      _ directing that frustration at these people as if they’re responsible for it_

      Yeah… their voting policies over the years, they are.