With concerns about affordability dominating the local housing market, it's not too much of a surprise that only 40 percent of greater Bay Area residents are "very confident" that they will be able to afford the kind of home they want in the next five years, according to a new study from the Urban Land Institute. That's significantly less than the 54 percent of people living in metro areas nationally who feel very confident about getting the type of home they desire. The study also exposes a stark divide between millennials aged 18 to 36 and older generations. Only 24 percent of millennials fall into that "very confident" category, and perhaps for good reason—baby boomers don't have big plans to downsize their homes any time soon.
The overwhelming majority of millennials have not settled down yet into their "forever" homes, with 74 percent of the millennial age bracket saying that they plan to move in the next five years. They worry, however, that they may have nowhere to move to. Only 27 percent of baby boomers and 37 percent of the slightly older "war/silent generation" expect to move to a smaller home in that time, a much smaller percentage than the 43 and 47 percent of those generations who plan to do so nationally. So where will the millennials go? With rates of new housing construction staying low across the Bay Area, that's a question that remains to be answered.
· Bay Area in 2015 [Urban Land Institute; PDF]
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