Forget the Children. Wont somebody please think of the boomers.

In the now famous The Simpsons episode in 1996, Helen Lovejoy quoted: “Won’t somebody please think of the children”. That statement has found itself into popular culture over the last few decades and was wittily mused by Simpsons lovers as house prices sharply rose post Covid-19. But over the last few weeks I have found myself giving this quote a different spin “Won’t somebody please think of the boomers”. Downsizing is a time in life when you want to sell your principal place. It’s usually a house that has been home for a family that has now left or with only one straggler left at home.

The idea is you sell the home, shedding the maintenance of a house and buy an apartment with some lifestyle options for a lower price allowing you to put the extra funds towards making life a little cosier. It was a week or so ago and I was calling an auction for a two bedroom unit in Nundah. I have long been an advocate for Nundah, it offers great transport, easy access to schooling and an abundance of open green spaces with a cosmopolitan high street. It is the perfect place for someone who is thinking about downsizing to set up a new base.

At this auction the bidders were made up of first home buyers, investors and two downsizers. With 12 bidders in total the auction was electric. First home buyers, fueled by stimulation up to $1 million, grabbed hold of the auction with an opening bid of $745,000 (a price that would have set a suburb record not that long ago). Bidding quickly rose with rapid bids to $890,000 when I announced the property ‘on the market’. The boomers, with a lifetime of earnings, had more money than the first home buyers, but with youthful energy and the federal government support these first home buyers drove the boomers to their million dollar limits. The two downsizer bidders then softly competed with an eventual sale price of $1.003 million. These new prices are still at or below construction costs, so they stack up in that sense and make this the new normal. It just means that navigating the tightrope timeline of sale to purchase is a very important move for any downsizer preparing to make that tactical transition.