https://www.abc4.com/news/wasatch-front/utah-seniors-renting-not-owning/
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – An analysis of the U.S. Census Data by Point2Homes, an online real estate marketplace, found that more seniors over the age of 65 are renting than ever before, and that is true in Utah as well.
The analysis found that the number of U.S. seniors renting increased by over 30% over the past decade.
“Now, I would never consider buying a house,” Laura Smith, a former homeowner and current Salt Lake City resident, told ABC4.com.
Smith is part of the growing group of seniors choosing to rent out of necessity.
In Utah, real estate expert Thomas Wright said that seniors are reluctantly giving up homeownership and turning to rentals.
“Because of escalating property taxes, the insatiable appetite the government has to continue to tax us at a disproportionate rate, and they can’t keep up with it. Then you combine that with escalated costs of maintaining a property on a fixed income, and it becomes unaffordable for many seniors, so they’re turning to the rental market,” Wright said.
In Utah, the percentage of senior renters has risen from 6% to 8% over the past decade, a 35% increase according to Wright.
“These are the Americans that built our country, that worked so hard to build our society, and now the housing market is pricing them out and they’re becoming renters at a quicker pace,” Wright said.
Americans just like Carl Bell, who owned a house a few decades ago and now has to spend the rest of his life renting. He said he previously owned a nine-bedroom home, but keeping up with prices became impossible.
“Finding a way to get a down payment and finding a way to make the payments because they’re high and the interest rates are very high,” Bell said.
He is retired and living on a fixed income. Bell said that the system is failing seniors like him. "If you are intentionally jacking up the prices on real estate, it is doing harm, "Bell said.
Thomas Wright said that one of the solutions to this could be to address what he calls the ‘missing middle’ in the housing market.
“We don’t just continue to need only single-family homes, we do need that Buit we need that missing middle inventory, those rowhomes, those townhouses, fourplexes, triplexes we need that inventory because first-time home buyers want it and so do seniors who want to downsize and stay in the communities they’ve lived in their entire lives,” Wright said.
Real estate experts say that addressing this “missing middle” could be the key, not just for seniors but for Utah’s entire housing future.
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