From the New York Times:
“Right now we are all focusing on how bad it is, said Jeffrey Otteau, whose company analyzes contract sales figures, “but what we are also seeing is a historic reversal of home-buying demand away from suburban and rural areas to cities and inner-ring suburbs that are more walkable than driveable.”
Mr. Otteau says the shift was partly because of higher energy prices. But the dominant reason is that the number of households with children living at home is on a persistent decline.
“In 1985,” he said, “50 percent of households had children at home. In 2000, that was down to 33 percent. Today it is 29 percent, headed to 25 percent.
“That means that 75 percent of home buyers over the next 15 years will have childless households — and within that group are empty-nester baby-boomers, or couples or singles buying a first house. And that means that three out of four home buyers will have no interest in a house in the suburbs with a good school system, which is pretty much what we’ve created over the last 50 years.”
Mr. Otteau cited a new study from Virginia Tech projecting that a nationwide surplus of 22 million suburban homes on lots larger than a sixth of an acre will be languishing on the market by 2025.
