If you’re a millennial or a Gen Xer, you’ve likely heard a lot about the looming “Great Wealth Transfer.”
Baby boomers have reached the age where conversations of retiring and downsizing are finally coming to the fore. Typically, it’s also the time parents begin to see how much of their estate they’re willing to share with their children while everyone’s still together.
The assumption has been that children of baby boomers would soon be on the receiving end of one of the largest generational wealth transfers in history. However, according to a new survey, folks over 60 are holding on to their assets for as long as humanly possible.
The ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ is on hold
The youngest members of the boomer generation crossed the threshold of 60 last year. By the end of 2025, close to 12,000 people a day will turn 65 for the next two years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The “silver tsunami” is reaching its peak, but those in the position to share their wealth are apparently planning to keep their money and real estate assets to themselves.
According to a new report from Charles Schwab, almost half of boomers surveyed (45%) confessed they wanted “to enjoy my money for myself while I’m still alive.”
Schwab’s team surveyed 1,000 high net worth Americans, who are defined as people with more than $1 million in investable assets. That demo skews heavily toward the baby boomer generation, as they possess $83.5 trillion in wealth, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2024.
UBS forecasted that boomers’ assets, which included real estate as well as cash, would transfer to the younger generations within the next 20 to 25 years. While there is data that suggests children of boomers will still inherit real estate from their folks, the timeline is stretching.
And as boomers hold around $17 trillion in home equity, which was about half of the nation’s total homeowners’ equity in 2024, that’s going to have implications as the years pass on.
Why baby boomers are staying put
In all fairness, it’s hard to share the wealth when funds are so desperately needed.
The economic changes of the past decade, combined with rising health care costs and life longevity, have made it rather necessary for Mom and Dad to hold on to their assets.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder that the majority of boomers are planning to distribute only about 40% of their assets while living—leaving the rest to pass on after their passing, according to research from Edward Jones.
But there is a flip side.
Inheriting money vs. real estate
Three out of four boomer homeowners were reportedly looking to bequeath the proceeds from the sale of their homes, or the homes themselves, to their kids, according to a 2024 survey by Freddie Mac.
Additionally, economists at Freddie Mac estimate that the number of baby boomer-owned homes will decline from 32 million in 2022 to 23 million by 2035, meaning more houses will still enter the market in the coming decade.
Given the uncertainty of it all, there are some financial planners working hard to persuade their clients to pass their wealth to their children while they are still young adults.
“It’s the 20- and 30-year-olds who need it the most,” Michelle Crumm, a certified financial planner in Ann Arbor, MI, told USA Today. ”Those two decades are the ones that have the highest needs and the lowest ability to have any money coming in.”
What about Gen Z and Gen Alpha?
Meanwhile, Schwab’s survey gives an interesting peek into the lives of the upcoming generations. While 11% of Gen Xers and 15% of millennials agreed they wanted “to enjoy my money for myself while I’m still alive,” both groups were more than twice as likely to opt for sharing their wealth during their lifetime than boomers.
“Schwab serves over a million multimillionaires, and as they move from building wealth to preserving and passing it, we see an increasing need for specialized services and support around estate planning, wealth transfer, and legacy planning,” says Andrew D’Anna, managing director of retail client experience at Charles Schwab.
“According to our survey, younger Americans could be poised to reshape legacy planning and the future of how wealth is passed to the next generation.”