Political Memes

Yes, often the repairs should have been done years ago, but either way you slice it, the typical boomer house is not exactly super enticing stuff. A family member looked into buying a boomer house after the owner died, and before even delving deep the ductwork was shot, termite damage visible, warped subflooring, cracked foundation. On top of all this it was a 1500 square foot home when pretty nearby houses of comparable room count were about 3000 square foot and not much more expensive list price. Even if it were in mint for the era condition, the windows were single paned, the insulation thin, and various other updates you'd want.

I'm not so sure "they don't build them like they used to" applies to houses. Shrinkflation for the yards to be sure, but in terms of the house itself, the houses tend to actually be smaller. In terms of durability, you may have bottom dollar sentiment but it's competing with a lot of engineering advancements. They can be relatively cheap but still be a very robust structure. Even mass-market plumbing fixtures are generally better than fixtures you'll find in 40 year old construction. That old house might have a lot of Polybutylene plumbing, for example, instead of PVC and PEX, for example. The old house probably has a higher chance of usable attic storage space versus modern trend of engineered trusses using up the space, but can probably take more of a beating structurally.

Just saying that getting all fixated on the Boomers personal residences isn't really that big of a part of the problem. Now if you say they are tossing their retirement money toward contributing to the rental racket, I'm with you, but I'm not going to think it's worth it to see about trying to get those boomers into apartments just to free up housing stock that isn't generally as great as folks might think it should be.