Christine Ji, Business Insider, January 18, 2025
- Zillow identified major housing markets that are home to outsize shares of empty nesters.
- These markets could see housing inventory go up sooner rather than later.
- The Rust Belt is home to most of the five markets that seem ripest for a so-called silver tsunami.
In what’s been dubbed a silver tsunami, an $84 trillion generational wealth transfer is expected to happen in the next two decades as older Americans pass on their assets.
That could seriously shake up a housing market in which homeownership is heavily skewed by age. Boomers, who make up about 20% of the US population, owned 36% of all homes in 2024, Freddie Mac found. Those boomers are also sitting on more than $17 trillion, or roughly half, of the total home equity in the US.
The silver tsunami may not be a silver bullet for the housing crisis at a national level, said Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.
But Zillow identified certain markets with particularly high concentrations of empty-nest homes, which are expected to come onto the market as their owners downsize or pass away. These areas could provide an easier entry point for prospective buyers.
Boomer-heavy metro areas don’t have much overlap with the expensive markets popular with Gen Zers and millennials, such as San Jose, Austin, and Denver, Zillow says. That means inventory in those hot spots isn’t expected to see much of a boost from empty-nester houses coming onto the market. Rather, many of the markets that have a high concentration of empty-nest households are in the Rust Belt.
But Gen Zers and millennials are proving that they’re increasingly willing to relocate out of expensive metro areas and seek affordability, thanks to the flexibility of remote and hybrid work. In fact, there’s been a recent trend of younger Americans moving out of cities and into suburban or exurban communities. Some are going even farther into rural areas.
For homeowners willing to look outside the popular housing markets, there may be deals to be found where the boomers are.
“When these homes hit the market as owners downsize or otherwise move on, that extra supply should benefit buyers,” Divounguy said.
Listed below are the top five housing markets that Zillow says are set to benefit from the silver tsunami, as well as the percentage of empty-nest households in each. For context, the average empty-nester share of households in 2022 nationwide was 16%.
5 housing markets ripe for a silver tsunami
Pittsburgh
Share of empty-nest households: 22%
Buffalo, New York
Share of empty-nest households: 20%
Cleveland
Share of empty-nest households: 19%
Detroit
Share of empty-nest households: 19%
New Orleans
Share of empty-nest households: 18%
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