A Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-sponsored Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) requires a borrower to be at or over the age of 62 to qualify for a loan, making baby boomers most of the new qualifying candidates for a HECM.
A new report from Construction Coverage sourced by its researchers and data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow identified the top metro areas in the country that contain baby boomer homeowners, identifying both the “top” and “bottom” 15 markets.
At the top of the list is Tucson, Ariz., with 41.8% of all homeowners being members of the baby boom generation. Rounding out the top five are Pittsburgh, Rochester, N.Y., Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (all tied at 40%) and Buffalo-Cheektowaga, N.Y. (39%).
The report also took stock of statewide baby boomer homeowner populations.
“While baby boomers—defined as Americans between the ages of 58 and 76 in 2022—comprise just over 20% of the U.S. population, they account for nearly 38% of homeowners nationwide,” the report said. “Notably, baby boomers dominate the housing market in many New England states, such as New Hampshire (42.5%), Vermont (42.0%), and Maine (41.7%). But Delaware leads all states with 42.7% of homeowners being a part of the baby boomer generation.”
In contrast, fewer baby boomer homeowners can be found in Midwestern states including North Dakota (35.5%), Nebraska (35.6%), Minnesota (35.7%) and Indiana (36.0%). Utah “stands alone” with only a 30.4% composition of baby boomer homeowners, the report said.
“In 2008, at the onset of the Great Recession, Americans over the age of 55 owned 44.3% of homes,” the report explained. “By 2021, that percentage had increased to 54.2%. While the share of homeowners under the age of 35 remained fairly steady within the same time span, the share of homeowners between the ages of 35 and 54 decreased from 42.3% to 33.8%.”
2022 saw some minor transfer of homeownership to those under 35 (12.2%) and those between the ages of 35 and 54 (34.2%).
The top 5 U.S. metropolitan areas that have the lowest concentration of baby boomer homeowners include Salt Lake City (29.9%), Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas (30.4%), Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo. (32.6%), Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, Ind. (32.9%) and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas (33.1%).
