Funny how when the real statistics come to light that there is evidence that it is NOT the BBs at all. The majority of investors on this site are much, much younger.
The housing market boom started in many countries between 1995 and 2000. In the UK and US prices went above their long term trend in about 2000. So there's been a boom or bull market for ten to fifteen years.
People typically buy their first property from their mid-twenties onwards. So given the above dates, they're going to be upwards of 35 to 40. That's roughly the older half of Generation X and the Baby Boomers.
Someone has to pay for price rises. The equity fairy doesn't come along and magically drop a couple of hundred thousand dollars into your bank account. (Unfortunately.) By pretty much any metric you care to quote, Australian homes are expensive, and the younger generation (who haven't benefited from price rises building equity) have to fund this through borrowing and deposits. Hence there's a transfer of wealth (either earned or future earnings) from them to the older members of society who hold property.
In short, the timing of what has been a long bull market in property has massively benefited those who bought in ten or more years ago. That'll be everyone from the older Generation Xers and up, of which the Baby Boomers are a large part.
The Independent article I linked to (and it's quite doom and gloom) suggests that it's going to be Generation X that suffers in any downturn as they're the ones buying family homes on large mortgages. Generation Y in many cases won't have bought into the housing market, and the Boomers should have enough equity to absorb losses.
Wobbycarly, I'm surprised by the skew of ages on this board, though I should point out that over half of those who responded to the survey are in the 35+ age group (i.e. born before my arbitrary cut-off date of 1975) that I said were beneficiaries.
In 1976 or 1977 my parents went on a ten week overseas trip, and around that time house prices in our area (inner southern Brisbane) almost doubled. I am sure that much much of Brisbane did the same, but I only am familiar with our area as my grandparents house had just been sold for $29K prior to the trip and by the time they got back it would have fetched over $50K.
The purchase and sale price of their first home in the early 60s is less clear because it was bought with pounds, but they made a little money from it when they sold from the hillside block to a level one. From memory they bought for around 2000 pounds and sold for (maybe) 4000 pounds a handful of years later, and bought again for similar money.
That house was sold in 1987 for $80K (21 year time frame).
What I am trying to say (not very well ) is that blaming the boomers for pushing prices up is silly. House prices were rising, staying flat, etc etc for a long time before the boomers had a great influence (in my opinion).
