Investing for Generation Y

[Jimmy H.]

We know baby boomers are retiring, they want beach front and golf course locations with little maintenance and ranch style one story living. That is the sterotype at least.

The new wave of "boomers" born between 1977 and 1994 are the future of America, generation Y. They are a much more diverse group. Being born in the middle of generation Y myself, I am interested in investing for the future of my generation.

You can research online what the new demographic will look like over the next 50 years. I want this thread to be a discussion of the type of housing, and specifically LOCATIONS that these individuals will want to live in. The trend is undoubtedly South and West and continues the trend identified by watching the progression of the "mean center of the population", which is somewhere in east Missouri at this point. This trend will likely continue, but where specifically are good areas with good jobs that are well poised for future growth. I would be interested to hear some smaller city ideas and not the typically Austin TX recommendation. Someone mentioned Springfield Missouri in a post i recently read, for example.

Thoughts?

[Sean H.]

I am also a member of Gen Y, having been born in 1987.

Most of my friends moved to the biggest city closest to where we grew up, which for me would be Pittsburgh. Of course there were some outliers who moved to Miami or Honolulu, but most stayed relatively close.

I personally see people in our generation moving away from small towns to bigger cities, mainly for economic reasons. Our generation has been fortunate enough to put many of it's people through college. The expectation was/is once you attain your bachelors degree, you will be able to land a job with a high enough income to substantiate the high expense of a college education. While there definitely are these types of jobs in smaller communities, they are few and far between and with such a large pool of qualified occupants, there are many losers.

This doesn't take into account all of the entertainment, cultural, etc aspects that will appeal to our generation as well.

One interesting thing that I was not aware of until I started investing. People from other areas of the country, actually receive more government money per month when they move from other parts to my area. It is a large incentive for lower income people to move to my area. So tracing the highest government payments by locale may be a good way to track the population movements.