This seems like it's only a problem if your retirement is predicated on selling your large family home and downsizing.
….
I think this is his target audience - those who plan on cashing in their home for their retirement income.
But I've actually thought about this for many years in terms of some my own siblings and their adult children who are on the East Coast. Combined, they have 5 adult successful offspring, none of whom could afford to now buy the home they grew up in.
So how long can these current real estate prices, and their expected continued rise, really go on?
I wondered this when my then-boyfriend bought his first house. It was a 2+1 cinder block house in a so-so neighborhood. He paid around $40k for it, IIRC. I remember thinking it would never sell for more than $50k. That was around 1980. Hahahahahahahaha!
<grin>
How long? Forever. Just like the investment market. Is it a straight line up? Of course or, but it will go up overall.
My 2 cents: Remember brass? (Supposedly) “Everybody” got rid of the omnipresent shiney, golden brass and wouldn’t dream of a home that didn’t have brushed nickel, and dark, brown granite with big patterns (a lot of movement, I was informed, is the term), the granite is ripped out, in favor of farmhouse chic whites, greys and sliding barn door hardware...and now, guess what? Gold is on its way back. Dark granite is oppressive. Someday, those with rolling doors on a bathroom will get tired of the fact that they almost never hang perfectly plumb and have less acoustical privacy (sorry, personal biases showing!).
My parents’ house was bought for maybe 80K in 1979. New home construction, colonial, in what would become expensive edge of country suburbs by about 2015. Sold for about 500K. This house was not updated At All, not remodeled with major plumbing issues. Easily over 1m in 2015 if it had been turnkey. Traditional living room/dining room, original carpet, origsiding and rotting trim.
In hindsight, the rule of thumb of doubling every 10 years was met, approximately. (80-160 at 1990, 160-320 at 2000, 320-640 at 2010, 640->1m at 2020). A millennial couple bought it as their first house, totally rehabbed, and now they have a crap-ton of equity.
So. I hardly think that the suburban world of boomers homes, if that’s the premise we’re starting with (that all boomers live in the burbs), will become a deserted wasteland of ye olde homes inhabited by the have nots, who purchased on a steep discount. LOL. More likely, people like my sister (one of those parentally-subsidized failure to launch types) will move in to the parents house and stand pat, because it’s free (inherited).