Numbers in Multi-Generational Households Quadrupled

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Numbers in Multi-Gen Households Quadrupled

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, hey, real estate fans, Alice Lema here, Broker, John L Scott in beautiful southern Oregon with another edition of The Weekly podcast. And today we're gonna talk about the phenomena of multi-generational families quadrupling in the last 50 years. 50 years is not a long time in society, in culture. 50 years is actually kind of short.

And so Pew Research, PEW, great website, if you wanna go and dive into this deeper did a study starting from 1971 to 2021, and we have a quadrupling in the number of people who are now living in a multi-generational lifestyle versus, you know, from the seventies. So in 1971, we had 14 million people living the multi-generational lifestyle, about 7%.

So as of [00:01:00] 2021, we have 59 plus million people living that lifestyle, or about 18%. Now, just a little side note, as of 1940, we had about 25% of the population. Now in the forties, fifties, and sixties, it was so common for elders, middle parents, and kids to all live together. And then it kind of fell out of favor and then it started coming back.

And I want to talk about why it's coming back because it affects our real estate purchases and sales. So, interestingly enough, a lot of what's driving the multifamily or multi-generational, whatever you wanna call it groups to live together, financial stresses are a big part. And it's, it's the youngers, oh my gosh, the millennials and the, the youngers on up, even to my age bracket. Elders who are not [00:02:00] prepared for the retirement or they were as prepared as they could be and inflation got the better of 'em. That's happened many times over the last 50 years. The other driving force is just a different, a different approach to aging. And and almost going back to the forties and fifties where living together is a cultural experience and people wanting to be together to just enjoy each other's company and to enjoy what benefit each generation can bring.

Because it's fun and there's a certain amount of health in that kind of lifestyle. One of the other reasons people are living together is it spreads out the work. You can have more people doing chores, doing maintenance, and doing the daily cooking, cleaning, [00:03:00] laundry, that kind of thing. So spreading out the work, the workload among more people is actually our number three driving force.

Number four, you can just have a bigger, nicer property. You can have some acreage, you can have a lot more square footage. You could have a pool, you could have an outdoor kitchen only because you're joining these financial forces and your buying power is much bigger. So those are the four reasons that people are living together at different generations, different number of adults living in a household. Those are the top four, and depending on the study you look at, you'll see these in a different order. But they're all kind of the same form. We, that culturally we're swinging back. And as a real estate agent, that is my experience as well. And I personally have lived this lifestyle with some of my family [00:04:00] members and It was beneficial.

We were doing it because of the elder needing care, but I think there's a lot of benefit to living with different age adults. So before we wrap up, I do wanna just have a couple of tidbits that I thought were interesting. Men and women are about equal, living in these households, but men are more likely to do so if they're younger, like under 40. It's more common. And women of it is more likely, more likely to live in that arrangement if they're 40 and older. I just thought that was an interesting tidbit. And then lastly, just to technically define what we're talking about when we say multi-generational households, it's two or more adults, mainly ages 25 or older living with other adults [00:05:00] that are of different ages two or more adults. And then if you have a grandparent living with a grandchild, and they're adults, they call that the skipped generation. So just some technical terms, but very interesting study by Pew Research. And it's validating what I'm seeing out in the field, just buying and selling, helping people buy and sell property.

So if you're interested in talking more about this for your family or your group, because it's not always people that are related. We have many, many people that are either friends, or coworkers or extended family discussing these kinds of living arrangements and I think they can be very beneficial.

There are some pitfalls we should talk about that, but gimme a call, gimme a text and we'll sort it out for your situation. My number is [00:06:00] 541-301-7980. That's 541-301-7980. Multi-generational households, could it be for you? Maybe yes, maybe no, but let's chat about it. In the meantime, have a great week hug those you love, and we'll see you again next time.