Residential Housing May Never Fully Recover

Several recent studies are showing that owning a house, driving a car and saving the planet are not high priorities for Millennials; those people born between the early 1980’s and 2,000. There are more of them than Boomers by millions!

Housing: If you are a single family residential home builder talking to a young person or couple about building a new home you may find your message falling on deaf ears. Only 19% of Millennials, ages 18–34, have any desire for home ownership. Most want to live in multi-family situations where they can be around their peers. Connectivity is through their phone or tablet. They will be buying homes but it will be condos and townhouses, not single family homes on lots that need mowed or manicured. Home is where their cell phone is.

Driving: Millennials don’t need cars as much as the Gen X or Boomers do. They are job hoppers that in a lot of cases means working from home networking with other Millennials to complete projects. In just the last 8 years, applications for a driver’s license has dropped 24% for that age group compared to others. Working from home, interacting with others on their phone and taking public transportation is growing. Let’s hope that you don’t sell new homes and used cars as it may start getting tough to make a living.

Green Living: Save the Planet! Fugetaboutit….Millennials are not big on anything green or energy saving. Only a third as active in helping the planet as their Gen X or Boomer brothers and sisters, these young people are more active in concerns involving their own priorities through social media than they are about saving whales, energy or trees. They assume that the newly built condo they buy will be energy efficient. Pray that you don’t sell Green, Energy Star new homes and used cars as your days are numbered.

Other trends for this age group are the decline in the use of land lines.

Chicken with no bones. I know this sounds silly but they were raised on McNuggets and don’t want to pick around bones. That’s why KFC just introduced the “No Bones” chicken.

If your company doesn’t make an effort to market to these young people on social media that they use every day, you might not get any of the dwindling new home business they will provide. As they age, new single family home construction, something they don’t need or want, will begin to suffer.