🏡 Oakland County Michigan | Seller Perspective

What I Tell Boomer Sellers Who Ask If They Should Wait for a "Better" Market

Some clients want to time the market perfectly. Here's why that's usually the wrong question to ask.

📋 TL;DR

Boomer sellers often ask me whether they should wait for the "silver tsunami" to arrive before listing, assuming a flood of similar homes will eventually compete with theirs. In practice, that flood keeps not arriving, and waiting on a macro trend that may take another decade to unfold usually costs more than it saves. The better question isn't when the market will shift. It's whether your own life circumstances are ready to.

Why "Wait for the Wave" Is the Wrong Strategy

I understand the instinct. If everyone in your generation is eventually going to sell, waiting might seem like it avoids getting stuck competing against a flood of similar listings. But the data doesn't support that timeline. This trend has been discussed as inevitable for years, and it keeps arriving slower and more unevenly than forecasters expect, a pattern I broke down in detail in my full look at the silver tsunami in Oakland County.

If you wait for a flood that may take another decade to arrive, you are not avoiding competition. You are simply delaying your own move for a market condition that may never materialize on the timeline you are picturing. According to NAR's own research on this trend, boomers already represent the largest share of both buyers and sellers nationally, yet the expected surge in listings still hasn't materialized on the timeline originally forecast.

Pro Tip: If you're weighing whether to sell now or wait, ask yourself what specifically would need to change in the market to make waiting worth it. If you can't name a concrete number or timeline, you're likely waiting on a feeling, not a strategy.

The Two Questions That Actually Matter

Instead of asking when the market might shift, I ask sellers two questions. First, does the home still work for how you actually live today, or has it stopped fitting your life regardless of what happens nationally? Second, is staying and modifying a realistic option, or does the layout make that impractical no matter the budget?

The Northville client I mentioned earlier ended up staying and remodeling her kitchen and primary bathroom instead of selling, once we walked through those two questions honestly. Another client the same month sold within eleven days because her home no longer worked for her daily life at all. Same generation, same general market conditions, completely different right answers.

What This Means If You're the One Waiting to Buy

If you're a buyer holding out for more inventory because you've heard boomers are about to sell in large numbers, the same logic applies in reverse. Millennials with children currently own just 14% of large family homes nationally, while empty-nest boomers hold 28% of that stock, a mismatch I cover in more detail in my guide to age-friendly home design. That gap is real, but it is not closing on a predictable near-term schedule.

Buyers who wait on a macro trend instead of acting on the right home when they find it often end up waiting years longer than they expected, which is the same mistake as a seller waiting for a flood that keeps not arriving.

The Numbers Behind Why Boomers Keep Staying Put

A Redfin survey cited by HousingWire found that 78% of older homeowners plan to stay in their current home as they age, and it's easy to see why once you look at the numbers. Many locked in mortgage rates well below today's, and moving would mean trading a low fixed payment for a much higher one on a smaller loan balance. That math alone keeps a lot of otherwise-mobile homeowners exactly where they are.

There's also a generational shift in how long people stay put once they buy. Research from Cotality found that only 17% of homeowners born in 1946 moved between ages 65 and 75, compared with 22% of those born in 1938. That five-point gap compounds across an entire generation, and it's a big part of why I encourage clients to think through the actual financial case rather than assume selling is inevitable, a topic I go into further in my breakdown of real estate ROI factors for Oakland County.

🎙️ Tom's Honest Take

I've had this exact conversation dozens of times over the years, and my advice hasn't changed. National housing trends make for interesting headlines, but they rarely tell you anything useful about your specific home, your specific finances, or your specific life right now. The clients who make the best decisions are the ones who stop asking what the market will do and start asking what actually works for them today.

Whether that means selling now, waiting a year, or staying put entirely and modifying the home instead, the right answer is almost never found by predicting a national trend. It's found by looking honestly at your own situation with someone who knows this specific market well.

Tom Gilliam

REALTOR® | RE/MAX Classic | ABR · SRES · PSA · SFR · RSPS

24 years and 700+ closed transactions across Farmington Hills, Novi, Northville, and West Bloomfield, Michigan. Reach Tom directly at 248-790-5594 or Homes2MoveYou.com.