Generation Poised to Put U.S. Housing Market Back on Track
According to Harvard’s State of the Nation’s Housing 2009 report, as reported by Reuters, America’s youngest generation – Millennials – offers a lifeline for the nation’s current housing crisis.
A group of about 80 million, the Millennials are currently of peak home buying and renting ages and “offer a massive source of support for housing,” according to the study.
They’re also the group you want to target when marketing home products, building supplies or selling homes.
Due to new federal legislation passed this year including the economic stimulus package and the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Millennials are best poised to enter America’s affordable housing and remodeling market with numerous unprecedented advantages including: the lowest mortgage loan rates in the past 15 years, an enormous 2009 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers ($8,000) and a 30 percent energy tax credit (up to $1,500) for energy saving projects completed in 2009 and 2010 such as replacement windows and doors, roofs, insulation and water heaters.
According to the Reuters article, Millennials will “expand the number of needed housing units” and “will bolster demand for the next 10 years and beyond, supporting the sagging housing market . . .”
Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in an interview that with Millennials’ sheer population, “coupled with immigration, and you have the seeds, the possibility of a housing recovery.”
