TY  - JOUR
AU  - Venti,Steven F.
AU  - Wise,David A.
TI  - Aging, Moving, and Housing Wealth
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2324
PY  - 1989
Y2  - March 1989
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2324
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2324.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Steven F. Venti
Department of Economics
6106 Rockefeller Center
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH  03755
Tel: 603/646-2526
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: steven.f.venti@dartmouth.edu

David A. Wise
Harvard Kennedy School
79 John F. Kennedy
Cambridge, MA   02138
E-Mail: dwise@nber.org
M1  - published as Steven F. Venti, David A. Wise. "Aging, Moving, and Housing Wealth," in David A. Wise, editor, "The Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (1989)

AB  - We have described the relationship between family attributes and moving, and between moving and change in housing wealth. Moving is often associated with retirement and with precipitating shocks like the death of a spouse or by other changes in marital status. Median housing wealth increases as the elderly age. Even when the elderly move, housing equity is as likely to increase as to decrease. Thus, the typical mover is not liquidity constrained, although some are. High transaction cost associated with moving is apparently not the cause for the lack of the reduction in housing wealth as the elderly age. The absence of a well-developed market for reverse mortgages may be explained by a lack of demand for these financial instruments. The evidence suggests that the typical elderly family does not wish to reduce housing wealth to increase current consumption. For whatever reason, there is apparently a considerable attachment among homeowners to past housing.
ER  -