LOS ANGELES: Talk about millennials powering the apartment building boom is overblown. The real power going forward is going to be retiring baby boomers, say researchers.
Young adults have driven the recent rebound in apartment construction, but this is less a seminal shift than many suggest, said a senior economist.
Most of the increase in young adults moving into apartments is just a return to trend behavior. Relaxed mortgage standards during the housing boom caused many young people to buy homes. But in the wake of the crisis, young adults’ multifamily share has moved back up toward its long-run average.
The baby boom generation will begin turning 70 in 2016, ushering in two decades of rapid growth in the senior population, and will likely supplant young adults as the main driver of growth in apartment construction…