Baby boomers, millennials are a triple threat in housing market, owner says

According to the founder and executive of America's largest owner of single- family homes, baby boomers and millennials are part of a triple threat that drives up prices in the housing market.

Pretium CEO Don Mullen told FOX Business Maria Bartiromo on Mornings with Maria Wednesday that there is a huge amount of inventory stuck in baby boomers.

He said the combination of the bulge of millennials coming through the system, people choosing to age in place, and pulling forward of demand is a result of COVID. All prices are going up and will continue as a result of low construction for a decade. Mullen said that he founded Pretium in 2012 and that millennials, as they grew, would want to form households in a classic single-family home. Demographic changes took hold.

The average age of a person moving out of their single-family home used to be 60, 20 years ago, when you look at the numbers with millennials forming households and aging in place, according to the CEO. He believes that the only way to bring down soaring housing costs is to reduce the number of buyers.

He said that the only answer to increasing housing prices is a reduction in the number of people trying to buy.

Mullen said on the heels of the release of the National Association of Home Builders Wells Fargo Housing Market Index for May, which revealed that builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes fell eight points to 69 - the fifth consecutive month that builder sentiment has declined, and the lowest reading since June 2020.