Baby Boomers choosing to downsize, to give up the three-bedroom house and rent an apartment, are the main reason thousands of new apartments are being built in Houston.
“In Houston,” says James Gaines, an economist with the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, “we've been adding tens of thousands of units a year for the last several years, and quite a few of them are being targeted at that older age group.”
British researchers say Boomers getting divorced and living on the own are a factor. Gaines thinks it may be more about empty-nesters not needing a big house after the kids move out. They are responsible for higher prices, because they're not as accepting of cheap apartment amenities.
“That's a growing phenomenon and leads to the renting, the down-sizing, don't need the space, don't want all the furniture, and so forth, don't want to keep it up,” he says.