{"id":20180,"date":"2024-05-16T07:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=20180"},"modified":"2024-05-16T12:15:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T17:15:24","slug":"americans-living-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/homeownership\/americans-living-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Americans increasingly choose to live alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Boomers often take the blame for the current housing market, and while it\u2019s true that Boomers and Gen Xers have gained more housing wealth in the past few years, there\u2019s another side of things that is often overlooked &#8211; In the United States, one of the country\u2019s fastest-growing demographic is people 50 and older who live alone. These older adults may want to downsize their homes, but they can\u2019t, because there aren\u2019t enough smaller places to live. <em>The housing shortage is impacting every generation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Older adults living alone&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/gen-x-boomers-age-confront-153507767.html\">Yahoo! Finance<\/a>, nearly 26 million Americans 50 and older are living alone. This is a huge increase from the 15 million in 2000. The attitudes around marriage, sexuality, and gender have dramatically shifted in the past two decades, so more of these people aren\u2019t in traditional relationships or are divorced or separated. Adults who live alone can thrive, but they are living longer without the same kind of family bonds of the past, leading many to wonder how they will live independently as they age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Housing isn\u2019t keeping up with changing demographics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of these older adults live alone in a home with three or more bedrooms, something millennials dream about. Single homeowners often want to downsize, but the limited housing supply makes it difficult. Smaller homes aren\u2019t being built, even though the number of people who want smaller homes has increased. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Condos are often more expensive than the family home. Seniors who are retired don\u2019t want to put more into their living costs when they\u2019re facing the higher healthcare costs of aging. Boomers and Gen Xers who want to downsize simply can\u2019t. Minority older Americans who own their own home are having even more problems because home ownership has not generated as much wealth in their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Housing stability is affecting every American<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re feeling the housing crunch, you\u2019re not alone, regardless of which generation you\u2019re in. Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have homes that may not fit their needs, but they can\u2019t downsize with rising interest rates and inflation. Millennials and Gen Z don\u2019t have the resources to buy homes amid the rising costs of home ownership. Both generations are feeling the squeeze, <em>although for different reasons.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With every generation feeling the inflation squeeze and housing market dips, a number of Americans are living alone. Here is why!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337267,"featured_media":19273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[2430,1234],"class_list":["post-20180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeownership","tag-americans","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/designer-at-desk_925x.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20180"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21260,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20180\/revisions\/21260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}