Six in ten of the baby boomers looking to relocate in greater Memphis right now are leaving homes larger than 2,500 square feet, and a growing share of them are headed somewhere closer to 800. That’s the size some downsizing specialists now point to as the sweet spot for a retiree who wants two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a living space, and nothing more to maintain.
A “Rapidly Growing Segment”
Big League Movers, a residential moving company based in Memphis, said in a public statement that relocation requests from homeowners 65 and older seeking to downsize jumped 40% in its local market, describing senior citizens as “a rapidly growing segment of the residential transition market.” The company added that “demand for senior-focused relocation services will continue growing throughout the next decade,” projecting 15% to 20% annual growth in that customer segment through 2030. About a quarter of those senior moves cross state lines entirely, the statement noted, rather than simply trading a big house for a smaller one across town.
It’s a local data point, but it lines up with the math nationally. There are roughly 22.5 million empty nesters in the United States, and new single-family homes have been shrinking for years as builders respond to affordability pressure, with the median new home now sitting at 2,176 square feet, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ analysis of Census data. Someone leaving a 2,500-plus square foot family home behind for a home near that 800-square-foot mark isn’t shaving off a room. They’re cutting their footprint by more than half.
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The Bigger Houses Are Still Mostly Full
What makes the trend notable is how much room there still is for it to grow. A Redfin analysis released this spring found that empty nesters own 28% of the nation’s large homes, more than the 16% owned by millennial families who are actually raising kids in them right now. That mismatch has been described elsewhere as a housing bottleneck, but it also means the pool of homeowners who could realistically make the same move Big League Movers is describing is enormous, and most of them haven’t made it yet…