When looking at this chart on the homeownership rates of different generations, we notice that Baby Boomers were big on homeownership since their younger days while Gen X was minimal in homeownership during that same age period. While Millennials did better than Gen X in terms of starting homeownership rate, Gen Z surprises people by having higher homeownership rates during these times.

From a NYT article in 1977, we learn that mobile homes were popular with young families and retired people. Disregard the retired people for the purposes of this memo because they don't belong to the baby boomer demographic. Focus on the young families. It's common knowledge that boomers started families when they were younger and with mobile home being popular among young families, we can assume that the majority of the surge in homeownership rates for boomers during their young days were because they chose to buy a mobile home and live there than rent an apartment or single family home.

Today, young people don't desire to live in a mobile home. This is because they rarely think of it as property that they can own. The idea of homeownership emphasizes the ownership of a single family home. Townhomes and condos are also visualized by people when it comes to homeownership, but those property types are secondary options as people have a single family home as their main vision. With so much competition from different generations on owning a single family home, young people are better off redirecting their homeownership efforts and acquire a mobile home than compete with their older peers in bidding wars for a single family home. That's what many boomers did and that's why they've thrived more economically than other generations.

My main takeaway is that I think that I think mobile homes played a major role in the economic success of baby boomers. If there are any professors on this platform, I hope that my memo inspired a new research topic for you.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/05/22/archives/mobile-homes-growing-up-mobile-homes.html