The housing world is a bit of a generational war zone, mostly between baby boomers and millennials.
Baby boomers make up more than one-third of all homeowners, and more than half don’t even have a mortgage, Eric Finnigan, vice president of demographics for John Burns Research and Consulting, previously told Fortune—a figure that is still true today. So in our current environment, where mortgage rates skyrocketed from historic lows throughout the pandemic to a more than two-decade high in October 2023, being mortgage-free is like hitting the mother lode. It’s partly why baby boomers aren’t moving—because why give up having no mortgage, or a substantially lower rate, for one that’s nearly 7.5% today?
