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Comment by asah | Hacker News Reader

How much of this is addressed by elderly parents selling their homes (which helps the housing crisis...) and moving in with their adult children? It's uncomfortable but frees up enormous amount of capital, and radically reduces costs of maintenance, food and even cable/internet/entertainment.

Back of the envelope: 50M people doing this at $300k average home value and $20k annual maintenance/taxes/insurance over 20 years of lifespan, and costs drop to food and healthcare. Seems like a no brainer.

(yes obviously this depends on people having had kids and not borrowed heavily against their house...)

What am I missing?

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What's missing is a practical way to encourage that to happen and make it a default expectation in society.

My wife's parents both live with us, they're Chinese and that's a common cultural norm in China, which which I am absolutely fine. It's not a common thing generally here in the UK though.

I can't imagine doing this with my mother because she is used to living in her own house, with her rules and her way of doing things. There's nothing wrong with that, I get on with my mother fine, but living with us would drive her, or us, or all of us insane very quickly. It's not just about doing it, it's also about the social norms and expectations of behaviour that make it possible.

>What's missing is a practical way to encourage that to happen and make it a default expectation in society.

Lack of options will be the encouragement. It's luxury to be able to live alone with your own rules and way of doing things. I will bet that most people who currently "live by their own rules" will acquiesce once they no longer have the power to do so.

You are missing who will be buying those homes (?)

The population is still increasing and there is a housing shortage.

Old people sell homes and combine households with family. Young people (larger total population) buy up those homes.

Thats how its supposed to work, but instead we have real-estate as investment and old people sitting alone in their massive houses until they croak.

The population is still increasing and there is a housing shortage.

I'm not sure that really matters. If young people can't afford to keep a huge house that costs a fortune to maintain then any shortage isn't going to get people to buy that house. They can't afford it even if the old people who own it lower the price.

Say an increased supply of 4 bedroom houses appears. More people with 3 bedroom houses will be able to upgrade than previously to replace them, which means more people in 2 bedroom houses will be able to upgrade, driving down the prices of 2 bedroom houses as well, which means more people will be able to buy a house at all.

This assumes that there isn't already a supply of 4 bedroom houses. That assumption is wrong. In fact there are far more large houses that younger people don't want than the market needs, and old people who bought them as investments to sell so they could retire and live off the equity are finding that a big problem - http://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-vs-baby-boomers-b...

At the same time there isn't enough supply of smaller properties that young people ~do~ want. This is another, separate problem.

>> "We project a 400T dollar shortfall in worldwide pensions, which will result in global economic crisis and reduced standards of living."

> No problem! Just move in together!

The point is to find a way to resolve the shortfall before it happens, not just accept it as an inevitability.

The 'housing crisis' could go either way. It could be 2008 all over again, someday: the elderly need to sell their houses when every other house is in foreclosure, and their retirement funds have lost over half their value.

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