In a series of recent interviews with Real Estate Journal.com, Toll Brothers founder, Robert Toll, shared his views on why retirees and young people like cities, why Hurricane Katrina helped spark the nation’s housing slump and when the market will rebound.
Among the highlights:
Today’s Baby-Boomers are more “hip-hop and happening than our parents”. They don’t want the big house in the suburbs. They want to be near the cultural perks of city dwelling. Affluent Baby Boomers want to live in the cities now and are moving back in greater numbers.
American buying habits have changed over the past few decades. Much larger homes are being purchased for much more money. People were reticent in the ’60s and ’70s to display wealth. Today, no one thinks it’s a negative.
Robert Toll believes that Americans lost confidence in themselves after Katrina, and rushed to sell instead of buy. No longer did Americans hold the perception that they couldn’t go wrong by buying a house with 5% down and selling it for $100,000 more in six months.
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