The boomers’ housing bomb

Dear John: The show “60 Minutes” recently ran a segment about Cleveland, Ohio, tearing down houses that banks abandoned. That reminded me to ask you a question.

If baby boomers represent such a large percentage of our population, and if in the future they may downsize to condos in Florida or just plain die, won’t that have an effect on the real-estate market?

What if there are just not enough people in the subsequent generation(s) to purchase all these homes, even in a healthy economy?

Maybe tearing down houses will be the new norm, and politicians will spin it as addressing global warming by creating more green space: “A healthy garden for every foreclosure.”

Just curious if you’ve ever had this same simple thought. G.K.

Dear G.K.

A lot of people are wondering what will happen when the baby boomer generation moves on.

Baby boomers are 78.2 million strong. The generation is typically considered those people born between 1946 and 1964. And because they grew up in affluent times, boomers have about $2.1 trillion in annual buying power.

There are said to be 72.7 million kids born around the turn of the century — Gen Y, for those who need nicknames to remember things. But how long will it be before 12-year-olds start thinking about homebuying?

So demographics is a problem, as anyone who has looked at the Social Security situation will tell you.

Will we have to knock down houses? Maybe. But except in the most extreme circumstances, homes are owned by someone — people or banks. So it’s not easy to make a decision to knock a building down and essentially walk away from an asset.

The alternative to letting houses sit vacant for too long, of course, is to find buyers. And if you read my column regularly you know that I’ve proposed a solution: Let people use tax-advantaged retirement accounts to purchase real estate. It would create a new group of homebuyers.

Or we can just tear down houses and build new ones for Gen Y.

Send your questions to Dear John, The NY Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, NY, NY 10036, or john.crudele@nypost.com.