To the Editor:
Re “The Housing Crisis Is Also a Retirement Crisis,” by Kyla Scanlon (Opinion guest essay, July 19):
Ms. Scanlon’s essay is one of several I’ve read lately that seem to blame older homeowners for causing home prices to grow out of reach of younger folks. I find it troubling that many young people are unable to purchase homes, but the belief that buying a home used to be easy for everyone is simply false.
Beginning 42 years ago, my husband and I worked tirelessly for years to obtain our home. We lacked the money we needed and so ended up building it ourselves, digging the foundation footings with shovels and building every part of it that we possibly could. The house has appreciated tremendously, but it is not funding our retirement.
If we sold our modest house, we’d have to buy another for close to the same price. In fact, our beloved home is a money pit; we are not living the high life based on our home’s appreciation. Home maintenance and upkeep of property are expensive, and hard work.
I struggle to see how the equity that we have built up in our home has in any way contributed to the unaffordability of anyone else’s home. Maybe real estate speculators should have a finger pointed at them instead.
I hope that by the time my husband and I die, we will not have been forced to sell our home, and that the wonderful young friends whom we have chosen to leave it to will reap the benefits of its appreciation and be able to buy homes for themselves.
Lisa Bush Sebastopol, Calif.
To the Editor:
I’m old. A large part of my retirement security is tied up in my too-big, empty-nest home. But I’m not selling. Why? Because I bought that house almost 40 years ago. It’s paid for. And it has appreciated. Just inflation would guarantee that. If I sell my too-big house to a nice young couple who need the space, I’m going to take a big tax hit. If I hang on until I die, I get stepped-up basis. No capital gain and no capital gain tax.
Solution: Get rid of the capital gains tax on sales of a primary residence. Or even just increase the deduction to catch up to inflation. Then you will see homes on the market and people like me cash out our biggest retirement asset to make room for transition. Otherwise, wait 10 or 20 years for my generation to die and our houses to come on the market.
Philip N. Elbert Nashville
To the Editor:
My husband and I renovated our house after we finished paying for college for three children and before we retired. We doubled down on our house to allow us to age in place for as long as possible. It is our hope that by selling the house later we are ensuring that we have enough to cover care expenses late in life without burdening our adult children.
The Iowa town where we live has 3,000 single-family homes that are now rental properties. A city alderman noted that these houses would have been the starter houses young families are looking for. Sadly, they are now investment properties.
We used to watch neighbors turn over every now and then as people aged and sold. It seems that is no longer the way it goes.
Rita Nelson Bettendorf, Iowa
To the Editor:
If you want to see the housing crisis in its most toxic, distilled form, look where I live: California.
Through Proposition 13, approved by voters in 1978, California didn’t just turn housing into a retirement plan; it turned housing into a landed gentry system. By capping property taxes based on historical purchase prices rather than current market values, we incentivized an entire generation of older homeowners to never sell, starving the market of supply.
Worse, for decades, these artificially low tax bases were deeded down to offspring like royal titles, creating generational wealth for a select few while completely locking out younger or self-made buyers who are forced to pay exorbitant tax rates on wildly inflated home values just to live next door.
The greed isn’t just personal; it is legally subsidized. When a wealthy boomer pays 1970s-level property taxes on a $2 million beach home while a young family pays full freight on a modest condo, the social contract is broken. The remedy isn’t to throw Grandma out of her house, but to untangle this distortive tax subsidy.
First, Proposition 13 should be strictly means-tested: If your household wealth or income exceeds a certain threshold, you pay your fair market share.
Second, we must permanently eliminate the inheritance loophole for all nonprimary residences and multimillion-dollar estates, reassessing them to market value immediately upon transfer. If we don’t decouple housing equity from retirement and tax privileges, we will completely break the economic future of the next generation.
Mark Kelley Redwood City, Calif.
To the Editor:
Between 1970 and 2025, the U.S. Consumer Price Index increased by 730 percent. The demise of the fixed-rate pension, the rise of the 401(k) and the high cost of residential real estate are all rational market responses to the federal government’s inflationary monetary and fiscal policies during the same period. Given the $39 trillion national debt, we can expect more of the same results in the future.
Charles Hoffmann Media, Pa.
To the Editor:
I would like to point out another significant reason retirees don’t want to sell their homes.
My husband and I purchased our home 25 years ago. The purchase price was under $1 million. The home is now worth over $3 million. The costs to sell the home include Washington State sales tax, federal capital gains tax, real estate commissions, closing costs and other expenses, totaling just under $1 million.
We are retired and would like to buy or rent a smaller home, but we cannot afford to throw away $1 million of our net worth. How many people can?
There’s a way to fix this. Our government leaders should allow the sale of a primary residence to be free of sales tax and capital gains tax.
Patricia Minden Kirkland, Wash.
To the Editor:
Here’s my response to Kyla Scanlon’s essay about the housing crisis in America: Although my home has increased quite a bit in value, I am not holding on to it for its potential further appreciation value. Why should I sell and move somewhere else when I currently have a 2.875 percent fixed rate on a 30-year mortgage?
My age is irrelevant. Buy a new home with a 7 percent mortgage rate? No thank you.
Steven Morris Mount Pleasant, S.C.
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