According to the National Association of Realtor (NAR) news item provided in Part I: “Baby boomers account for 42% of all home buyers, while millennials fall to 29% (down from 38% from one year ago).” It has long been said that manufactured homes were often purchased by younger singles, couples, and families and those who are at or near retirement age. That has been summed up in the curious expression that MHVille buyers are dominated by the ‘newlywed and nearly dead.’ In Part II are insights from the Civitas Institute. Their 3.12.2025 item is entitled: “Regulatory Costs Ensure the Housing Sector Can’t Thrive.”
Regular and detail-minded readers of MHProNews are already aware of the problem of regulatory barriers to more affordable housing, but Part III provides additional facts-evidence-analysis (FEA) with respect to this specific item.
Part I – Baby Boomers Regain Top Spot as Largest Share of Home Buyers
News Release
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Baby Boomers Regain Top Spot as Largest Share of Home Buyers
Key Highlights
- Baby boomers account for 42% of all home buyers, while millennials fall to 29% (down from 38% from one year ago).
- Multigenerational home buying is on the rise, with Generation X leading the trend.
- Half of older boomers and 40% of younger boomers are purchasing homes entirely with cash.
WASHINGTON (April 1, 2025) – In a shift that underscores changing dynamics in the housing market, baby boomers now make up the largest generational group of home buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
NAR’s 2025 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends report, which examines the similarities and differences among recent home buyers and sellers across generations1, found that the combined share of younger boomers (ages 60–69) and older boomers (ages 70–78) rose to 42% of all home buyers in the past year. Millennials dropped to 29% of all buyers – down notably from 38% a year ago. Generation X buyers (ages 45–59) held steady at 24%.
“In a plot twist, baby boomers have overtaken millennials – the largest U.S. population – to become the top generation of home buyers,” said Jessica Lautz, NAR deputy chief economist and vice president of research. “What’s striking is that half of older boomers and two out of five younger boomers are purchasing homes entirely with cash, bypassing financing altogether.”
While older buyers were more likely to pay cash, younger generations were much more likely to rely on financing and family support. More than 90% of buyers 44 years and younger financed their home purchase. Twenty-seven percent of younger millennials (ages 26-34) and 13% of older millennials (ages 35-44) cited a gift from a relative or friend as one of the sources for their down payment.
The report revealed that 24% of recent home buyers were purchasing for the first time, a significant drop from 32% last year. First-time buying was most common among younger millennials (71%), while older millennials are now more likely to be repeat buyers.
“Older millennials are buying bigger and newer homes with larger down payments than their younger counterparts,” Lautz added. “This shift reflects the increasing role of equity in enabling repeat purchases, especially among older generations, while younger buyers continue to face affordability challenges.”
Generation X home buyers continued to lead all generations with a median household income of $130,000, followed by older millennials at $127,500.
Seventeen percent of all home buyers purchased a multigenerational home – up from 14% last year. Generation X led the way, with 21% choosing multigenerational living, followed by younger boomers at 15%.
“Gen Xers are today’s sandwich generation,” said Lautz. “They are purchasing multigenerational homes to accommodate aging relatives, children over the age of 18 and even for cost savings. While Gen X are purchasing at the highest household incomes, they may still feel the squeeze as they aim to find a home that serves everyone.”
Meanwhile, Generation Z – though still a small segment of the market (3% of all buyers) – had the highest share of single-female home buyers at 30%, and like millennials, they tend to purchase older homes compared to other age groups.
“Gen Z is slowly entering the housing market with the lowest household income and they’re more likely to be single than other buyers,” Lautz noted.
Nearly nine out of 10 buyers (88%) purchased their homes with the help of a real estate agent. Younger millennials (90%) were the most likely to use an agent. Referrals remain the primary method most buyers use to find their agent. Referrals by friends, neighbors or relatives were higher among younger millennials (54%) and older millennials (42%) compared to older generations, which were more likely to work with an agent they had previously used to buy or sell a home.
The overwhelming majority of buyers – 88% – said they would use their real estate agent again or recommend them to others. This sentiment was even stronger among Generation X buyers (91%) and those in the Silent Generation (93%), underscoring the enduring value of professional guidance across generations.
On the selling side, baby boomers again dominated, accounting for 53% of all sellers. Across all generations, sellers stayed in their homes for a median of 10 years. Younger millennials remained more mobile, typically selling after five years, while older boomers sold after 16 years.
Ninety percent of home sellers worked with a real estate agent, and homes typically sold for 100% of the final list price. Younger millennials were the most likely to use an agent (94%) and often saw the strongest returns – 27% sold their homes for 101% to 110% of the list price, and 13% sold for more than 110% of the list price.
Methodology
NAR mailed a 127-question survey to 167,750 recent home buyers in July 2024 using a random sample weighted to be representative of sales on a geographic basis. Home buyers had to have purchased a primary residence home between July 2023 and June 2024. The survey received 5,390 responses from primary residence buyers. After accounting for undeliverable questionnaires, the survey had an adjusted response rate of 3.2%.
About the National Association of Realtors®
As America’s largest trade association, the National Association of Realtors® is involved in all aspects of residential and commercial real estate. The term Realtor® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the National Association of Realtors® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics. For free consumer guides about navigating the homebuying and selling transaction processes – from written buyer agreements to negotiating compensation – visit facts.realtor.
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1 Survey generational breakdowns: Generation Z: (ages 18-25); younger millennials (ages 26-34); older millennials (ages 35-44); Generation X (ages 45-59); younger boomers (ages 60-69); older boomers (ages 70-78); and the Silent Generation (ages 79-99).
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Part II – U.T. Austin based Civitas Institute: Regulatory Costs Ensure the Housing Sector Can’t Thrive dated 3.12.2025
Summary by Dan Shoag
Reducing regulatory barriers and boosting construction-sector productivity is not merely a housing-market issue—it’s a national economic imperative.
In 1984, the median sales price of a home was roughly 3.5 times the median household income. Forty years later, that ratio has climbed to about 5.3 times the median household income. Why has housing become so much less affordable?
One potential explanation is rising materials or labor costs. While these costs have certainly increased, they have not kept pace with the rapid rise in housing prices (see Figure 1). What, then, is driving this growing gap?
Ed Glaeser and Joe Gyourko suggest that the wedge between housing prices and construction costs indirectly measures the “regulatory tax” on development. In other words, if competitive markets normally price housing close to construction costs, then large, persistent gaps between these two figures signal the presence of explicit and implicit regulatory costs.
Estimates of these regulatory costs are significant, especially in high-cost metropolitan areas. Simulations of reforms designed to reduce these costs often predict substantial effects. For example, a recent study by the Terner Center at UC Berkeley found that a policy mix of increased allowable density, reduced parking requirements, and streamlined entitlement processes would double the number of units constructed in a high-cost city like Los Angeles.
Empirical examples reinforce the point. In Austin, Texas, a surge in permitting activity following COVID has driven rents downward. In Auckland, New Zealand, a comprehensive 2016 upzoning plan triggered a building boom that caused rent-to-income ratios to decline significantly, even as these ratios rose across the rest of the country.
However, not every reform has produced similarly dramatic results. California’s widely publicized SB9, which enables homeowners to build up to four homes on a single family parcel, has so far delivered underwhelming outcomes. Similarly, the evidence on Minneapolis’s 2018 zoning reform is mixed. Whereas skeptics of the plan point to initially disappointing recent permitting data, defenders note that Minneapolis rents have remained relatively stable compared to those in comparable cities. Disentangling the true impact of these reforms is complicated by concurrent changes in materials costs, interest rates, and other demand factors. For instance, Minneapolis simultaneously implemented stronger tenant protections, which may have dampened multifamily investment.
These mixed results underscore the complexity of regulatory costs and the ways they interact with one another. Removing one development barrier may accomplish little if other obstacles remain in place. Similarly, what constrains construction in one market may have little impact in another. A piecemeal approach to easing constraints may have little to no effect on prices.
Additionally, Glaeser and Gyourko emphasize that in many regions, housing prices do not significantly exceed construction costs, indicating that rising construction costs are a key factor. Data from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) shows that the average construction cost of a single-family home rose from $124,276 to $428,215 between 2000 and 2024. Industry sources estimate that regulatory costs now account for roughly 25% of single-family housing costs and 40% of multifamily construction costs.
Thus, even if prices align with construction costs in many markets, regulatory costs still play a role via construction costs. This impact can be seen directly in costs through fees, building codes, and other requirements. More fundamentally, as Glaeser, Gyourko, and their colleagues have documented, these regulations also affect construction productivity.
While labor productivity across the broader U.S. economy has grown by approximately 290% since 1950, construction-sector productivity has declined. Incredibly, construction productivity now stands about 40% lower than in 1970. Physical productivity measures, like square feet built per worker, are stagnant at best. Why has construction fallen so far behind?
Glaeser and his co-authors show a link between construction productivity and land use regulation. More tightly regulated cities have smaller, less productive construction firms. If regulatory costs drive construction costs, directly or indirectly via equilibrium productivity, then their impact can far outstrip the effect implied by the markup over construction costs approach. Earlier research points to a hesitancy of homebuilders to innovate in the face of building codes and other regulatory barriers. Glaeser and his coauthors show that this effect can have general equilibrium productivity consequences. Because of these interlocking effects, the impact of regulation on housing costs can far exceed the simple markup observed over construction costs.
Addressing these issues requires more than piecemeal reform. Given the interconnected nature of regulatory costs, state-and federal-level action may be necessary to overcome entrenched local opposition. Preempting local regulatory impediments is needed to unlock greater housing supply.
Based on the new research on productivity, one area that may have large returns could be standardizing and modernizing building codes. The current codes differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and recent updates to standards have often focused on potentially costly components like sustainability and energy efficiency. Developing a standard, performance-based, and cost-optimizing code could lead to greater investment in innovation across the industry.
Source: https://www.iccsafe.org/adoptions/code-adoption-map/IBC
Policy design should focus less on numeric production targets or traditional metrics like rent-to-income ratios, which can be misleading. Instead, policymakers should prioritize affordability as reflected in prices and rents.
The stakes are high. Rising housing costs have been linked to declining productivity, fertility, and mobility. These costs also ripple through the broader economy, impeding business dynamism and economic growth. Reducing regulatory barriers and boosting construction-sector productivity is not merely a housing-market issue—it’s a national economic imperative.
Dan Shoag is an Associate Professor in Weatherhead School of Management’s Department of Economics at Case Western Reserve University.
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Part III – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
1) Quoting Shoag: “In Austin, Texas, a surge in permitting activity following COVID has driven rents downward. In Auckland, New Zealand, a comprehensive 2016 upzoning plan triggered a building boom that caused rent-to-income ratios to decline significantly, even as these ratios rose across the rest of the country.” This is a different way of pressing the case that the law of supply and demand is at work in the housing market.
2) Shoag and NAR both fail to mention HUD Code manufactured housing in these specific items. So, it is no surprise that there is also no mention of the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act (a.k.a.: MHIA, MHIA 2000, 2000 Reform Act, 2000 Reform Law) and its “enhanced preemption” provision. That said, what Civitas reported is in line with remarks like those quoted or linked below.
3) MHProNews has been reporting for over a decade that the only way to bring rising housing costs into line is for builders of all kinds – conventional site-builders, other kinds of factory builders, plus HUD Code manufactured home producers – to “build-baby-build.” But of those options, HUD Code manufactured housing is demonstrably the most proven method to build housing en masse at scale. More specifically, MHLivingNews recently reported what HUD’s own researchers said. Namely, that millions of more housing units are needed and that only more supply will mitigate the demand. The barrier to more housing, said HUD’s Pamela Blumenthal and Regina Gray, are zoning and regulatory barriers. That is a different way to frame what the Civitas Institute expressed.
4) During his confirmation hearings, HUD Secretary Eric Scott Turner (R) said that HUD was failing at its core mission. While that is stating the obvious, at least Turner had the nerve to state the obvious.
5) Recently, the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) leaders have met with HUD Secretary Turner and what he apparently deemed to be some of his key staffers for that meeting.
6) Perhaps one of the most important points of that meeting is this. Representatives of the manufactured housing industry asked the HUD secretary face-to-face to have the 2000 Reform Law’s “enhanced preemption” provision to be routinely and robustly enforced. MHARR says there was a discussion around that legislation and provision which MHARR provided Sec. Turner with a letter from Congressional lawmakers that help document the ‘congressional intent’ for “enhanced preemption.” As of the time this report is being drafted (4.1.2025 at about 10:37 AM ET), there is no confirmation by HUD of that meeting, but based on MHARR’s history of consistent and transparent behavior, there are no known reasons to doubt their statements. Presumably, HUD and Secretary Turner are digesting what MHARR presented and asked.
7) There are two things that could ease the affordable housing crisis, per the Trump Administration. One is to remove millions of people in the U.S. illegally and thus open up the housing that they are occupying. The other is the construction of more housing, especially more affordable housing.
8) HUD has acknowledged a request from MHProNews regarding the Secretary Turner and MHARR meeting. MHProNews will keep industry members and others advised of developments. Additional related and other MHVille items of interest follow.
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By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
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