Baby boomers have major influence in housing market as they opt to move

Baby boomers accounted for 42% of homebuyers and 55% of sellers in the 12 months that ended in June 2025, giving them the largest share of housing market activity among the generations.

Everyone in the baby boom generation is now in their 60s, and while many younger members of this age group continue to work, they’re thinking about retirement, potentially downsizing their homes and moving closer to other family and friends.

“They don’t have to actually make that transition if they don’t want to, but we are seeing they are making that move,” NAR real estate director Jessica Lautz told Homes.com News. “I will say that people often tell us they are downsizing, but when younger boomers move, they often don’t downsize at all. Older boomers do, but only by [an average of] 200 square feet.”

The NAR’s annual report on generational trends shows that while boomers maintained the same pace of homebuying and selling between July 2024 and June 2025 as during the previous one-year period,millennials, who are aged 27 to 45, saw a substantial drop-off in their market presence — from 29% of buyers to 26%.

“Younger millennials who are most likely to be first-time buyers are priced out of the homebuying market, while older millennials may be repeat buyers and are at a point in their life where there may not be any substantial life changes propelling a housing trade,” Lautz said.

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First-time buyers, in general, are feeling stymied by high rents and student loan payments, she added, which make it hard to save to buy a house, and by a limited supply of starter homes for sale. The cost of childcare is another barrier; that’s true even among older millennials, who the report noted have the highest median household income among the generations at $132,700.

“Eighteen percent of older millennials said that this cost was holding them back from purchasing when they wanted to,” Lautz said. “That’s a pretty large share.”

Older buyers weigh multigenerational living

The strong presence of older Americans among homebuyers raises interesting questions about their choice of living situation. In the NAR’s recent report, 41% of respondents who chose multigenerational living cited health reasons or caring for aging parents. That’s up from 25% one year earlier. More than 20% said they wanted to spend more time with their older parents. And 12% of buyers said they had grandchildren living with them in the home.

“We know that moving in with family and taking care of each other is something that’s being embraced in this country,” Lautz said. “I think this is a trend that really was amplified during the pandemic, but it has not backed down. People want to take care of family in a home environment, as opposed to a nursing home.”

The share of buyers over 60 moving into active-adult communities, or what the NAR calls senior-related housing, fell slightly to 17% in the most recent year. Lautz said she is seeing a trend of baby boomers buying single-family, detached houses within these communities. That allows them to continue to live in their own house as they get older, but often as members of a homeowners association that handles property maintenance.

A trend that is likely to grow more important in the coming years is the need for universal design features, such as zero-step entrances and wider doorways, that allow these older homeowners to age in place comfortably, Lautz said. That’s also going to be a bigger factor going forward for people who choose multigenerational living so they can take care of their parents.