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<\/a>Photo: James Bombales<\/em><\/p>\nAlthough it seems like just yesterday for some, the Eighties were more than 40 years ago. And while mullet hairstyles are making a comeback, many of the home design trends that were popular then are now considered wildly outdated (looking at you, fluorescent light fixtures).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Given that more than half of all owner-occupied homes in the US were built before 1980, this has resulted in a renovation boom. But modernizing an ’80s split-level does nothing to solve the real issue facing the country\u2019s real estate market \u2014 the shortage of <\/span>3.8 million homes<\/span><\/a> needed to meet demand from Millennial buyers, the largest generation in US history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A <\/span>recent post<\/span><\/a> on the National Association of Homebuilders\u2019 Eye On Housing blog illustrates just how dated the nation\u2019s housing stock has become as a result of constrained construction. As of 2019, the median age of an owner-occupied home was 39 years, up from 31 years in 2005. The median age has steadily increased since the Great Recession as the share of new construction homes built within the last nine years fell from 15 percent in 2006 to 7 percent in 2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even homes from the early aughts, built between 2000 and 2009, make up just 15 percent of the owner-occupied housing stock. Meantime, the share of homes that are over 50 years old (constructed before 1969) jumped from 30 percent in 2009 to 37 percent in 2019. This is all happening as Millennials enter their prime household formation years, an event that was entirely predictable.<\/p>\n