Are Boomers exiting the Boston condo for sale market?

Boston Condos for Sale and Apartments for Rent

The doom is increasing but it doesn’t make the future is any easier to predict.

Most boomers are content to age in place, and their demise will have some impact on home sales – but it will probably drag out over the next 10 to 20 years.

Older neighborhoods where boomers retired in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are feeling it now.

But has there been mass dumping? No, just an occasional tragedy, like this one:

https://x.com/_The_Prophet__/status/2093805716859670843

Ford Realty Menu of Options for Boston and the North Shore

Buyers receive 60% rebate from our portion of the broker fee

Renters flat fee $1,000 regardless the price of the apartment.

As a home seller, it sounds like you have a solid grasp of the current 2026 landscape for flat-fee listings in the Boston and North Shore areas. Here is a concise breakdown of how those Ford Realty tiers typically function based on the service levels you’ve identified:

1. Basic “Entry Only” – $500.00

• Visibility: Your home is listed on the local MLS, which syndicates to Zillow, Realtor.com, and local brokerage sites.
• Your Role: You are the primary point of contact. You handle photography, scheduling all showings, vetting buyers, and all contract negotiations.
• Best for: Experienced sellers or those comfortable managing real estate paperwork and logistics independently. 

2. Flat Fee (Assisted) – Starting at $1,500.00

• The Upgrade: The broker takes professional photos and handles the listing setup.
• Added Support: You gain professional guidance for the initial setup, ensuring the listing looks polished to attract higher-quality leads.
• Broker Role: 60-day listing, one open house per month, schedule day and evening showings. The negative is that the full fee is due after 60 days even if the house/condo doesn’t sell or go under agreement.

3. Full-Service – 1% Commission 

• The Full Package: Professional photography and floor plans are included.
• Active Management: The broker hosts one open house per month and handles day/evening showings.
• Logistics: They are physically present for the BFD smoke detector inspection and the home inspection, taking significant stress off your plate. 

Key Financial Reminders

• Buyer’s Side: Regardless of your flat fee, remember to factor in the 2%–3% commission for the buyer’s agent to keep your home competitive.
• Tax/Closing: Budget for the MA transfer tax ($4.56 per $1,000) and ensure all Condo fees are cleared to avoid delays at closing. 

BUYERS REBATE

Boston and North Shore Buyers: We provide a 55% rebate of our commission to you, as the buyer, for homes priced over 500,000.

Are Boomers exiting the Boston condo for sale market?

The baby boomers’ impact on the real estate market is a regular topic on this Boston Real Estate Blog. Fannie Mae is predicting that more will be exiting homeownership but mostly due to aging out which should spread the impact over a couple of decades. But if you have 3-4 seniors check out of your neighborhood within a few months….their heirs will have your home’s value in their hands for at least for the short-term.

With most of today’s homeowners living in their forever home, it’s likely we’ll see the residential resale market being dominated by estate sales, which will favor the buyers.

The Baby Boomer generation, which comprises those born between 1946 and 1964, has an enormous Boston condo for sale market footprint. Baby Boomers inhabit 32 million owner-occupied homes, accounting for two out of five homeowners in the United States. Generations born before the Boomers own another 14 million homes. Departures of these older adults from the homeownership market (leaving for rentals, senior care facilities, or by reason of death) will accelerate as the large Baby Boom generation continues to age.

With the oldest Boomers now advancing into their 70s, the beginning of a mass exodus looms on the horizon, spurring fears of a bursting “generational housing bubble” in which homeownership demand from younger generations is insufficient to fill the void left by multitudes of departing older owners. A fumbled intergenerational handoff would reverberate through the housing market and economy, and thus developing analytical techniques for monitoring and predicting changes in homeownership among older adults has never been more important from a business or public policy perspective.

Baby Boomers have not yet begun to depart homeownership in substantial numbers. Importantly, the historical analysis also reveals steady increases across generations and decades in homeownership retention rates (the ratio of the number of homeowners in a birth cohort at the end of a period to the number of owners in the same cohort at the beginning of the period) for the oldest owners as they age.

The projections indicate that the number of older adults exiting homeownership will accelerate during the next two decades as the bulky Boomer generation advances into elderly age groups where homeownership attrition rises sharply. The number of older owner-occupants who exit homeownership between 2026 and 2036 is projected to total between 13.1 million and 14.6 million, an increase of at least 42 percent over the number of older homeowners who exited during the last ten years. The coming acceleration of older adults departing homeownership adds urgency to industry and public policy efforts to facilitate a smooth handoff of housing assets from older to younger generations.

Source: Fanniemae.com

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