The National FabricM · Revealed Preferences
M3M
Empty-Nest Estates
Six bedrooms, two occupants, four vehicles, and a plan to downsize starting soon.
Reference marketFirst identified in Barrington, Illinois (ZIP area 60010).
Also found inBloomfield Hills, Michigan; Wayzata, Minnesota; Chesterfield, Missouri; Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; Dublin, Ohio.
Thesis
Housing consumption did not fall when the household did, and the surplus is defended as optionality for grandchildren who stayed a combined nine nights last year.
Square footage retained well past the reason for it.
Portrait
In their own words
- Age61
- Income$284K
- Net worth$2.6M
- Education68%
- Home$1.1M
- Ownership91%
- HouseholdMarried, two adult children, no resident under 40
- VehicleTwo SUVs, a convertible, and a truck for the trailer
- Debt$210K remaining on a house they intend to sell
- Vice
- Optionality
- Most likely to
- Heat 5,400 square feet to 71 degrees for two people
- Signals
- Bonus rooms, a Peloton in a former nursery, a second freezer in an empty bay
Who they are
Two people, 5,400 square feet, six bedrooms, and four vehicles registered to a household with two drivers. Four of the bedrooms have not been slept in since 2019, when the younger one graduated. One is now a Peloton, one is officially the guest room and was occupied a combined nine nights last year. The whole structure is heated to 71 degrees because zoning off the east wing was quoted at $8,400, which is less than one year of the gas bill it would eliminate. They have been going to downsize for six years — a phrase delivered with the confidence of a stated intention and the completion rate of a resolution. The listing agent has been to the house twice, socially.
Our neighborhood
Half-acre-minimum lots on a road named after the orchard, forty-one miles from a city two-thirds of the residents no longer commute to. Ninety-five per cent detached, 94 per cent four bedrooms or more, median age 61. The school district is funded almost entirely by people who stopped using it eleven years ago and vote for the levy anyway, which is the most generous thing in this report.
Shopping
Buys in quantities calibrated to a household of five that has been a household of two for six years, then discards the difference. The Costco membership is Executive and the second freezer sits in a garage bay no car has used since 2019.
Spending
$28,400 a year in property tax, $9,100 in lawn and snow contracts, and $210,000 still owed on a house they intend to sell. Utilities on the unoccupied half of the structure run $3,200 a year.
Media
Zillow, opened nightly, to look at this house rather than at other houses. Also a downsizing podcast, three episodes deep, and a Facebook group for a lake town they have visited once.
Interests
The bonus room, which has been a theater, a gym and an office, and is now storage for the two previous configurations. Grandchildren, in principle, at a distance of 900 miles.
Where they live
Darker is more of them.
M3 · EMPTY-NEST ESTATES
ZIP CODES
—
How thick on the ground
$123K
Median household income
1.70× the national median
$604K
Typical home value
2.26× the national median
4.7×
Home value against income
1.25× the national median
52%
Bachelor's degree or higher
2.25× the national median
80%
Owner-occupied
Share of occupied units
$2,123
Median gross rent
Monthly, contract plus utilities
2.54
Average household size
Persons per occupied unit
42.9
Median age
Years
How they compare
Against the average American household.
Median household income
1.70×
$123K here$72K everywhere else
Typical home value
2.26×
$604K here$267K everywhere else
Bachelor's degree or higher
2.25×
52.4% here23.3% everywhere else
Home value against household income
1.25×
4.70× here3.76× everywhere else
Who lives next door
Household types that turn up on the same blocks.
M8HomeGoods Wine MomsThe one affluent household where the house does not eat the raise, and the difference is spent within four miles of the driveway.
M5McMansion MartyrsTop-decile earners who converted the entire raise into square footage and now describe themselves, without irony, as house-poor at $268,000.
M7Four-Car CouplesTwo adults, four registered vehicles, and a metropolitan area that has made the first two mandatory and the last two a personality.
B5Costco DoomsteadersPrepper-lite. A few months of freeze-dried lasagna and a generator.
J3Overqualified Sadburban ReturneesMoved back near parents after the cool city got impossible, now pretending it was a choice.
M6Office CowboysMetropolitan households operating three-quarter-ton agricultural equipment against a services salary and a fourteen-minute commute.
The receipts
- 01Four or more bedrooms89th41.8%
- 02House consumed against household occupying it78th1.29
- 03Bedrooms per resident78th1.29
- 04Households over $200,00085th24.4%
- 05Rooms per resident76th2.73
- 06Vehicle intensity beyond what the setting requires73rd0.22
- 07Households with children62nd31.1%
- 08Average household size58th2.54
- 09Private schools per 10,000 residents63rd0.83
- 10Households with three or more vehicles48th26.7%
SourcesFigures from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Education and MoneyHole Research. Everything else is observation.