Baby boomers and the Silent Generation are expected to hand back 13.9 million owner-occupied homes over the next decade, according to research published Oct. 5, 2026 by Realtor.com. Almost none of them will be starter homes.
That is the finding agents and builders should take from the report, written by Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu. Of the 13.9 million homes projected to be released between 2026 and 2036, about 380,000 have two bedrooms or fewer — roughly 38,000 a year nationwide. Three- and four-bedroom family homes account for 9.9 million, or 71.2%, and homes with five or more bedrooms for 3.6 million.
The arithmetic behind the number
Realtor.com estimates 36.7 million homes are currently owned and occupied by the two oldest generations and projects that figure will fall to 22.8 million by 2036. The 13.9 million difference is what the firm calls a “release”: the net number of homes vacated by owner-occupant households through death, a move into institutional care, household consolidation or a shift to renting. It is not a forecast of listings.
The pace builds through the decade, from roughly 1.27 million homes in 2027 to 1.52 million in 2036, averaging 1.39 million a year. The report treats 2026 as an inflection point for a demographic reason: this is the year the oldest boomers turn 80, and the youngest members of the Silent Generation have already passed that mark. Drawing on 2024 American Community Survey data, Realtor.com notes homeownership rates by age generally peak in the mid-70s and begin falling only in the early 80s.
The comparison with the prior decade depends on the yardstick, and the report gives both. Between 2016 and 2026, roughly 8 million homes were released by the then-younger boomer and Silent generations, while 10.4 million were relinquished by older households generally. So 13.9 million is a 33.7% increase — 3.5 million homes — over the older-household pace, and a 74% increase, or 5.9 million homes, over what these two generations themselves handed off.
Scale alone does not close the gap: the firm is explicit that the handoff “is not big enough to solve the 4 million home shortage facing the U.S. housing market alone.”
Why the starter-home segment barely moves
The counterintuitive part is that older owners hold a great deal of entry-level housing and are unlikely to let go of it. Boomers and the Silent Generation own 1.33 million starter homes, or 51.3% of the national stock of that type, per the most recent ACS data in the report. Yet the projected 10-year retention rate for starter homes is 70.7% — higher than for family homes (61.2%) or large homes (63.6%).
Realtor.com’s explanation is financial: owners of smaller, cheaper homes pay off their mortgages sooner and have less reason to move. Averaged across 2014 to 2024, 72.8% of starter-home owners aged 70 to 79 owned free and clear, against 65.1% of family-home owners and 58.9% of large-home owners the same age.
The resulting supply is thin. At about 38,000 starter homes a year, the release equals roughly 3% of the starter homes listed on Realtor.com between July 2025 and June 2026, and the report concludes the added supply “is unlikely to move the needle on affordability in any noticeable way in the next decade.” Builders have been making a parallel point from the construction side — one recently called it “incredibly difficult” to profit from a traditional starter home.
The report also reframes the entry-level problem: starter-home listings ran 9.9% below the pre-pandemic average, but sales ran 24.7% below, and the median listing price for a 0- to 2-bedroom home was 65.2% higher than pre-pandemic — about $118,000 more. Realtor.com reads that as a shortage of affordable starter homes rather than of starter homes.
Where the supply actually lands
Family and large homes are a different story. Realtor.com counted 4.01 million family homes listed between July 2025 and June 2026 against a 4.44 million pre-pandemic average, a 9.7% shortfall, and projects 910,000 released in 2027 alone — enough that half of one year’s release reaching the market would restore listing inventory to pre-pandemic levels, all else equal.
Large homes see the biggest relative effect. That segment’s listing shortfall is only 2.2% — 536,000 listed against a 548,000 pre-pandemic average — while the projected annual release of 360,000 equals 67.2% of recent listings. Half of that reaching the market would add the equivalent of a third of recent inventory.
Realtor.com expects price softness from all this, and is careful about its shape: real, but gradual, regionally uneven and concentrated in family and large homes rather than a uniform national correction. Two caveats carry that hedging. Demand is weakening alongside supply — the report cites Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies projection that household growth will average 859,000 a year over the coming decade, against a 1.2 million annual average since 2000. And the geography is mismatched: citing National Association of Home Builders research, Realtor.com notes the metros releasing homes fastest sit in the Rust Belt and Midwest, not the expensive coastal markets where affordability pressure is worst.
One footnote deserves attention from anyone modeling listing counts off this projection. Realtor.com estimates the inheritance rate among homes previously occupied by the aging population was about 16.9% in 2025 — homes that change hands within families without reaching the open market. The report’s illustrative scenario assumes 44.8% of released homes do reach it.
The projections rest on cohort-retention modeling: Realtor.com chains single-year homeownership transition rates from 2014–2024 ACS data forward by age, using Social Security Administration actuarial life tables to extend retention past age 89, and applies the method separately by bedroom count. These are projections of household behavior rather than of market activity. For context on current conditions, existing-home sales fell below an annual pace of 4 million in August for the first time since June 2025. Further housing market coverage follows the monthly data.
