The summer of 2020 has been a crazy summer for the Aspen Snowmass real estate market. As of the end of August, the real estate market has set all sorts of records for sales with the activity likely to carry over into the fall. So far this year, the market has recorded a total residential sales volume of $1.43 billion, an impressive 48.6% increase over the total sales volume of residential sales at this time last year. In August, the number of sales transactions hit 102, which was twice the number of closings in July, and the total volume of closings topped $546 million more than twice the volume in July that was the record month prior to August. This summer has been by all measures a record three months in the history of Aspen Snowmass real estate. If this pace continues, we’re likely to record an annual sales volume of residential properties in the Aspen Snowmass market in the low $2 billion range, which would be a 30% greater volume then the market experienced during the last real estate boom of 2006 and 2007.

Twenty years ago, leading real estate think tanks such as the Urban Land Institute and others predicted a great migration would take place in this country where large urban centers would lose population to smaller cities and towns around the country as people sought a better and more affordable quality of life. The prediction was based on the prospects for better communications technologies which would foster radical changes in how and where we work. The result would give us more choices of places to live since we were no longer tethered to our places of employment. The projections were that between 2000 to 2050 as many as 70 million people (about 20% of the country’s population) would seek to escape the overcrowded and increasingly expensive major metropolitan areas.

As people adjust to life during the COVID-19 pandemic some new trends in home design are likely to emerge. The pandemic has forced people to rethink their values and lifestyles. What we thought was important before the pandemic may become less so now, and what we didn’t value a great deal before is becoming much more important. This review of our values is impacting everything from where we live, how we work, recreation and how we want our homes and living spaces to be designed. Whether your designing a new home, or renovating an existing structure, these emerging trends will likely impact your thinking. It’s likely these housing design trends will start to show themselves in the Aspen Snowmass area.

Across the country, second home real estate markets are booming. Story after story have emerged in the past couple of months of record demand for homes located in areas outside major cities and resort areas around the county. Whether it’s beach communities, like the Hamptons and Cape Cod, or mountain resorts from Colorado to Wyoming, traditional second home communities are seeing an unprecedented demand for long-term rentals and properties for sale. This demand seems driven by the desire of city dwellers to relocate to suburban and rural areas to ride out the coronavirus pandemic. The reasons for living in cities such as the social interaction, live sporting events, entertainment, theatre and plenty of bar and restaurant opportunities have, for the time being, disappeared due to the pandemic. City dwellers have figured out that the pandemic impact on city life is likely to last much longer than originally thought and are seeking to live in areas that offer a quality lifestyle less dependent on large social gatherings.

The Aspen Snowmass real estate market has been a beneficiary of this migration which seems to have no end in sight. When the year began, it appeared the Aspen Snowmass real estate market would experience another good year with the total sales volume at or above the 2019 volume. Three months into the year, the Coronavirus hit the market like a brick bringing the number of real estate transactions to a virtual standstill for almost three months. By mid-May, it looked like the local real estate market was in for a serious slump as the phones of local real estate offices went silent. But as mid-May approached, the phones of local real estate offices started ringing off the hook with clients from around the country looking for long-term summer rentals. This early wave of renters was soon followed by a flood of buyers looking to relocate to the Aspen Snowmass area to escape the heavily pandemic hit cities.

When the Covid-19 pandemic lead to the economic shutdown in mid-March, it was unclear how real estate might be impacted. The initial reaction was that a government-imposed recession would hurt both residential and commercial real estate due to high unemployment and a significant decline in the country’s gross domestic production. Most economists expected the Covid-19 recession to play out like many previous recessions with an increase in residential listings as the demand for real estate declined. But what’s unfolded in the past three months has surprised many in the residential real estate world. Residential listings have actually declined creating a shortage of housing, new home construction has picked up significantly and there has been a sharp increase in demand for homes outside major city centers creating bidding wars in many areas of the country for suburban properties.

Even though the residential real estate market seems to be weathering the pandemic storm, the commercial side, with a few exceptions, has experienced a more negative impact. Commercial real estate is much more closely tied to the health of the business community. In the short-term when businesses are forced to close, commercial tenants aren’t able to pay rent. In the longer-term, shifts in consumer behavior caused by the pandemic can lead to changes in the demand for certain goods and services. This will impact the demand for commercial real estate in many cases negatively. Also, the pandemic and working remotely has companies rethinking their use of office space and the need to travel for business, both of which impacts office buildings and hotels.

Uncertainty mixed with optimism makes for an interesting environment when it comes to making investments, particularly large investments like real estate. But today, these two forces are prominent influences in our Aspen Snowmass real estate market. In the first five months of this year, the country has gone from what seemed like a stable growing economy with a record low unemployment rate of 3.5% and a stock market setting new records, to a global pandemic crisis that led to a global economic shutdown, to massive unemployment that lingers in the 13-14% range, leading to a Fed prediction of a record 53% drop in the country’s GDP in the second quarter and to social unrest in the streets of the nation’s cities not seen since the 1960’s. Just went it looked like a period of extreme uncertainty was taking over, the Labor Department reported last Friday an unexpected rebound in U.S. employment with the non-farm payroll jumping by 2.5 million jobs.

On top of this economic and social turmoil, we see a stock market that’s gone through a sharp 34% drop and an equally impressive 43% rally back to levels just below the stock market highs of mid-February. We also see a COVID-19 pandemic that is far from under control with the total cases in the U.S. approaching two million, with predictions of a potential second wave in the fall. Also, health care experts have different opinions about when an effective vaccine against the COVID-19 virus will be available for the masses. In the background, the country is also going through an election year that could be one of the most divisive in the country’s history.

Whenever the economy undergoes a shock like we’re seeing now from the coronavirus pandemic, new trends often appear in the real estate market. It appears we may be in the middle of one of those unexpected paradigm shifts, when our world jumps from one track going in a predictable direction to another track heading in an unexpected direction. We saw this happen in the early 1900’s when society transitioned from the horse as the primary form of transportation to the automobile in one short decade. It is documented by two now famous pictures of 5th Avenue in New York City, one taken in 1900 showing the avenue crowded with horse and buggies and no cars, and another taken in 1913 showing the avenue crowded with cars and no horse and buggies. That transition changed the world and the real estate markets.

The trend that seems to be emerging from the current economic shock brought on by the current pandemic is working remotely. This trend could give rise to a significant migration from cities to rural areas around the country. Remote working was on the rise well before this pandemic; however, it was limited to specific occupations and companies that didn’t necessarily require face-to-face interactions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2018 that roughly 24% of employees across the country worked partly or completely remotely. Despite that earlier trend, many companies did not fully embrace the concept as workable for a majority of its employees.

That thinking is quickly changing as companies forced into a remote working environment are starting to see some of the benefits from remote working such as reduced costs, and in many cases higher productivity. If the COVID-19 pandemic requires that companies adjust to this new work environment for another year or more, it’s likely remote working will become the norm and not the exception for many employees. Although millions of Americans are now working from home out of necessity, major technology companies, like Facebook, Square, and Twitter, have aggressively embraced this trend and have announced that their employees can work from home indefinitely.

This past weekend, the Aspen Snowmass economy began to reopen after the 9-week shutdown mandated by the Governor of Colorado and Pitkin County officials due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We could start to see restaurants opening in Aspen at one-third capacity next week on May 20th and lodges opening to some guests beginning May 28th. This effort to reopen the economy is happening all over the country and around the world. Reopening the economy is taking place despite the ever-increasing cases of COVID-19 now over 1.3 million in the U.S. and 4.0 million worldwide. Deaths from the virus have now exceeded 80 thousand in the U.S. and are projected to reach as much as 3,000 per day by the first of June.

While the local and national economies are set to reopen, the official U.S. unemployment rate continues to increase and last Friday was reported at 14.7 percent but effectively could be closer to 20 percent or more. The country’s GDP also declined 4.8 percent in the first quarter and is expected to decline another 25 to 30 percent in this year’s 2nd quarter. As the economy opens back up, and real estate showings start up again, are the real estate markets in the Aspen Snowmass area as well as the rest of the country about to return to the activity seen before mid-March, or are we likely to experience a whole new normal?

An early indicator of how the real estate economy in the Aspen and Snowmass area may perform in the post COVID-19 lockdown era could come from the April market activity. April is the first full month since the mid-March closing of the economy. During April there were 17 closings across the Aspen Snowmass market with a total sales volume of about $70 million. This is a 60% reduction in the number of sales and 33 percent reduction in the overall sales volume from a year ago during April 2019.

On March 14th, Governor Polis ordered the closure of all ski areas in Colorado. That was followed on March 25th by a sweeping mandate from the Governor for all 5.8 million Colorado residents to stay at home, and for all non-essential businesses to close statewide. Similar orders were being issued by state Governors across the country. The bulk of these shutdown orders have been kept in place through the end of April into mid-May. These orders have had a huge impact on local economies, like Aspen and Snowmass, and subsequently the health of the real estate market.

During this roughly 30-day period of time, the reported cases of coronavirus across the U.S. has increased from about 65,000 to over 872,000, a roughly 14-fold increase. At the same time, the number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus has increased from just 1,260 to over 50,000, a roughly 40-fold increase. In the past month, the U.S. economy has shrunk in size by an estimated 25 to 30 percent, and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed from 3.5 percent in February to an estimated 15 to 20 percent. And, ninety five percent of airline traffic has been eliminated.

At this time, there is no proven treatment to cure or prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus other than social distancing and quarantines. Recent trials of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir, developed by Gilead Sciences, which were hopeful treatments have now proved to be failures. Depending upon who you listen to, an effective vaccine against the coronavirus that could be widely available to the U.S. population could be at least 18 months to three or more years away.

The first quarter Aspen Snowmass real estate market results are in for 2020. If you didn’t know that the winter ski season ended abruptly on March 14th when Governor Polis closed all Colorado ski resorts, and that the world is currently engulfed in the COVID-19 pandemic, then you wouldn’t have evidence of either by looking at the first quarter real estate market statistics in the Aspen Snowmass area. By all measures, the first quarter of 2020 was a strong one with total sales volume of residential properties up a solid 12% over the first quarter of 2019, and up almost 16% over the first quarter of 2018. For the first quarter of this year, there were 86 sales transactions compared to the same number in 2019. If this first quarter trend was to have continued through the remainder of 2020, this year’s market would have been on par to be another strong year like 2018 and 2019.

But the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting national and local economic impact is likely to upset an otherwise strong year for the local real estate market. The extent of the impact is still uncertain, but an early indicator is what’s happening to pending sales. As we enter the early part of April, there are about 28 properties in the Aspen Snowmass market that are under contract. Of those, only 3 were contracts signed after March 14th when the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic was becoming known. All three of those pending contracts are still in contingency periods. Of the remaining 25 pending contracts, all were signed before mid-March and only 6 are contracts without contingencies. At this same time in 2019, there were 50 to 54 pending contracts of which most went on to close with 30 to 60 days later. The lack of new pending contracts in the past 30 days is a potential warning sign that the market is slowing substantially. It’s also yet to be seen how many of the pending contracts with contingencies will end up closing.

The impact of the coronavirus outbreak is being felt across the country, around the globe and in the Aspen Snowmass community. Our local economy and real estate market has entered into uncharted territory. Never in modern history have we witnessed a lockdown of the global economy to the degree that we’re experiencing now. What’s happening in the Aspen Snowmass area is happening across every community in our country and every country around the globe.

What does all this mean for the future of the Aspen Snowmass economy and the local real estate market? The short answer is a great deal of uncertainty in the near term. To think that everything will return to normal in a couple of months seems unfathomable. But in an effort to try to make some more reasonable predictions, there are factors we can examine that could give us some clues as to what’s next.

The United States now leads the world in the number of Coronavirus cases. On Friday, that number was over 95,000 and could exceed 160,000 by early this week, a roughly 25 percent daily increase. Based on experiences in other countries like China and South Korea, strict containment measures and social distancing seem to be the only strategies available to contain the virus spread. If all states in the U.S. enforce strict containment measures to stop the spread, the experts feel we could see a flattening of the curve of new infections within the next 21 to 30 days, i.e. near the end of April. In the U.S., we have different states and cities enacting strict containment measures at different times. Some areas of the country, like Washington State, have been in lockdown mode for several weeks, while other areas like Florida have just entered their lockdown periods. As a result, this 21 to 30-day timeframe could extend out another 21 to 30 days.

Finding something positive in the current world of disease and financial turmoil is difficult. The stock market is down roughly 27 percent from its high on February 19th. The coronavirus is spreading across Europe and North America with alarming speed. Even the Aspen and Snowmass area is getting impacted in a way that few would have imagined a couple weeks ago. It’s not unreasonable to expect that the lockdown scenario currently taking place in Italy could expand across the rest of Europe and even to the United States in the next few weeks.

Not since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918 have we seen a scenario where a sizable segment of the world’s population could be infected with a “pandemic” virus within months. The impact of such a scenario unfolding in this country could have a severe impact, at least for the short term, on the U.S. and global economies.

But as fear of the coronavirus spreads around the world, there may be a silver lining for real estate markets, particularly high-end resort markets like Aspen and Snowmass. Without a doubt, the coronavirus scare is having a major impact on the world’s financial markets causing the worst global stock market declines since 1987 and 2008. As fear grips the stock markets, demand for safe havens has soared. The number one safe haven in the world is United States Treasury bills and bonds. This demand has caused interest rates to plummet.

The number one news story this past week has been the global spread of the coronavirus. From its origin in Wuhan, China, with an outbreak that started in December, the coronavirus has in just two months spread to 47 countries and every continent in the world except Antarctica. From its historic peak on February 12th, the U.S. stock market has, as a result lost, almost 14 percent of its value, the bulk of that decline in the past week, on concerns that the spread of the virus could have a significant impact on the global economy. The airline and travel industry have been hit the hardest with multiple cancelled flights to and from Asia and the cancellation of conferences and events around the world over concerns that assemblies of large groups could help spread the virus faster. Most recently, a January conference of just 109 people in Singapore has been traced as the source of coronavirus outbreaks in Malaysia, South Korea, England and a small alpine ski resort in France.

The coronavirus is not a new disease. A previous outbreak of a coronavirus took place in China in 2003. However, in 2003 China wasn’t as big a part of the global economy as it is today. In the past two decades, much of the world’s manufacturing has moved to China. Today as the manufacturing capital of the world, China is currently in lockdown mode to prevent the spread of the virus within China. As a result, many factories that produce the goods that supply the world are shut down or experiencing significant slowdowns. Companies in the U.S. from Apple to GM are warning of shortage of parts from China that could slow manufacturing in the U.S. Many companies around the world are now reporting that the coronavirus outbreak could impact their bottom lines for the foreseeable future. As a result, profit forecasts have been cutback which is impacting global stock markets.

The health of real estate markets in ski resorts depends to a great degree on the health and popularity of the sport of skiing. As the popularity of skiing grew after World War II, so did the popularity of ski resorts, and subsequently the real estate markets surrounding ski resorts. However, over the past decade we see reports that skiing is declining in popularity. Most recently, Vail Resorts reported that visitation across all Vail Resort properties across the country had declined by 7.8 percent compared to last year. Although Vail Resorts claimed the decline was due to poor snow conditions at some ski areas, this seems to add to the perception that snow sports are declining in popularity. However, despite all the naysayers who have for several years proclaimed the demise of sports like skiing and snowboarding due to demographic trends and the threat of climate change, we may in fact be on the cusp of the beginning of the third golden age of skiing.

When you look back at the history of skiing, you see two past periods when the popularity of skiing took giant steps forward followed by periods of time of slow growth. Each ski popularity boom was preceded by an advance in technology that lead to a growth of interest in the sport. Modern skiing as we know it today, started in the European Alps at the turn of the last century when the social elite of Europe started spending the winter months in Alpine resorts. In the decades before World War II, skiing symbolized luxury and was only available to those wealthy enough to decamp to remote Alpine locations for weeks or months. The first ski areas were in Alpine towns such as St. Moritz and Davos that had the infrastructure to serve these new elite tourists. From these towns, guides would take skiers on tours that would involve climbing, traverses and occasional downhill runs similar to what we know today as back country skiing. New equipment was developed for this purpose and the sport grew in popularity amongst the European elite.

This first Golden Age of skiing, started to take off in the late 1920’s and 1930’s as the first ski lifts were built around these early Alpine ski towns. The sport began exploding in popularity in the 1930’s as new downhill only ski resorts were developed such as Sestriere in Northwest Italy which opened in 1938 with new hotels and a lift network that serviced 74 downhill runs. The sport spread to the United States in the 1930’s as new ski resorts, such Sun Valley in the west and several areas in New England, opened to service well-to-do-skiers. However, the first Golden Age of skiing came to abrupt end when World War II broke out in Europe.

Since the end of the Global Financial Crisis a decade ago, we’ve heard the term “negative interest rates”. This era of negative interest rates started when the Federal Reserve and other central banks started cutting rates to rescue the global economy from the sub-prime mortgage crisis. From 2008 to 2014, the European Union experienced an additional debt crisis when the solvency of several EU countries was in question. In response, the European Central Bank moved to adopt negative interest rates forcing commercial banks to lend out more money to boost the economy. As a result, today $17 trillion dollars of government bonds worldwide have negative yields, roughly 30 percent of the investment grade debt in the world.       

Negative interest rates mean an investor buying bonds and holding them to maturity will guarantee that they will lose money. In addition to buying an investment with a guaranteed loss, investors also have to consider what is their real interest rate. The real interest rate is the rate of interest an investor receives after allowing for inflation. For example, if the current 10-year treasury yield is 1.76% and the projected inflation rate is 2.0 percent over the next 5 years then an investor buying a 10-year treasury would be getting an effective minus .24 percent real return. With a negative interest rate bond, the real return is even worse. 

Investors in the bond market understand with zero or negative real returns they will either have no real return on their investment or lose money. What about the stock market? Stock valuations are again at historically high valuations relative to actual income. Warren Buffett uses a ratio of the total stock market value versus the Gross Domestic Income. The rational is that when stock prices go up, the collective value of the stock market goes up. When compared to the national collective income, you get a ratio to determine if stock prices have gotten ahead of themselves (overvalued) or are cheap relative to incomes (undervalued).

Design trends are always evolving particularly in luxury home markets like Aspen Snowmass. Affluent buyers hire the top architects and designers to achieve the most forward-looking designs. As we start a new decade, we’re likely to see new distinct design trends that will separate the 2020s from the past decade. Some of these trends we’ve already started to see evolving in the past year or two in newly constructed and decorated homes.

Surveys of top architects and interior designers are showing what these new design trends of the 2020s are likely to be. One of the big ones is that owners and designers are becoming more environmentally conscious about the impact of their design and decorating decisions. Expect to see more environmental sustainability designs evolve over the next decade. Longevity will be another key design theme. This will run the gamut from smarter and more energy efficient appliances that regulate energy usage, more green features in home design and even the refurbishment and reuse of classic furniture pieces. From furnishings that aren’t designed to be discarded in a few years, to the use of colors, such as different shades of green which evoke nature, the concern for the environment will be big part of new design trends. 

Another evolving design trend will likely be a move away from stark cold finishes, like concrete and whitewashed and bleached floor surfaces and the gray wave that’s been popular over the past few years, toward warmer and cozier surfaces. Expect to see more dark woods replacing light colored or concrete gray floors. One designer referred to this trend as “finishes with old-world charm”. In the past decade, gray and other neutral tones dominated new luxury home and interior design. Expect this gray neutral trend to give way to more interesting earth tone colors such as different shades of green, chocolate brown, camel, burnt orange, and deep reds. Designers are calling for the end of neutrals without texture or visual interest. 

A decade ago, we were experiencing the Great Recession, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The national economy along with the luxury real estate market was bottoming. Few buyers at the time were interested in purchasing mega-luxury homes in resort markets. The Aspen Snowmass market had dropped in 24 months from a $2.4 billion dollar sales volume market to a $950 million market, a decline of 60 percent in overall sales volume. At the time, the thought of a full recovery and prices exceeding the record prices set in 2007 and 2008 seemed an impossible dream. Few would have predicted in 2009 the market would recover in such a short period of time and go on to set new records.

But that’s what happened. By 2012, the Aspen Snowmass real estate market had picked up momentum with $1.4 billion in sales volume and prices had started to recover. It took three more years for the total volume of sales to break the $2 billion dollar mark. By 2017, the market was consistently averaging an annual sales volume of about $1.9 billion. In downtown Aspen, a good measure of the change in Aspen market values, the market had peaked in 2008 with average sales prices for property in the $1,600 per square foot. The market bottomed in 2011-2012 when average sales prices per square foot bottomed at $1,000 per square foot. Since then, the market has recovered to the point in 2019 where the average price per square foot was closing in on $1,900 per square foot, a roughly 19 percent increase over the record set in 2008.

The future of globalization has been a hot topic in political and economic circles in recent years. Over the past few decades, the world has become more interconnected as the result of trading alliances and treaties such as the European Union and NAFTA. Advances in technology, communications and social media have increased capital flows and trade around the world. Certain segments of American society, such as those involved with technology and finance, have benefited greatly from the trend to globalization, while other segments of society involved with, for example, manufacturing appears to have not. Regardless of your views about the pros and cons of the globalization trend, the direction of that trend could impact the Aspen Snowmass real estate market. 

In the past few years, political trends around the globe have put the brake on globalization. Some have referred to this as de-globalization. Most commentators say this effort to de-globalize, started with the rise of nationalism as evidenced by Brexit, the referendum in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, and by the election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S. in 2016 on a platform of restricting immigration, ending our renegotiating existing trade agreements, trade wars and ending U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Accord. All these events seem to have the goal of de-globalizing by reducing international trade and protecting domestic industries. 

Key international financial centers such as New York, London and Hong Kong have benefited greatly from globalization. These centers have financial, human and physical infrastructure required to service business across international borders. Secondary cities like Miami, and to some degree resort areas like Aspen Snowmass, have also benefited from liberal immigration policies allowing foreign buyers to more easily buy real estate in the U.S. As a result, real estate values in these international financial centers have exploded over the past decade. But the reverse is also likely true. If the political trend is turning nationalist with barriers to immigration and trade, it’s likely the international appeal of certain international real estate markets could be diminished which could impact international resort markets like Aspen.

It appears 2019 will be another solid year for the local Aspen Snowmass real estate market. The overall volume of sales year-to-date for 2019 are similar to, if not slightly ahead, of the total sales volume numbers for 2018 and 2017. But if you’re making a decision to sell an existing property in the Aspen Snowmass area, or to buy new property, what are the market conditions in 2020 likely to look like?

The history of the Aspen Snowmass real estate market shows that the health of the market depends to great degree on the direction of the U.S. stock market and the overall economy. When the economy is positive and the stock market is moving up, as we’ve seen in the past decade, the Aspen Snowmass real estate market also responds positively. When the national economy went into the Great Recession that started in the second half of 2008, the stock market also lost roughly 50 percent of its value from early 2008 through the fall of 2009. Unfortunately, the Aspen Snowmass real estate market collapsed as well. During the Great Recession, the total volume of sales activity declined from roughly $2.6 billion to a low in the mid-$900 million range, and real estate values declined 25 to 35 percent. So keeping an eye on the direction of the economy and stock market helps predict what’s likely to happen to the local real estate market over the next 12 to 18 months.      

As 2019 draws to a close, economists are discussing the likelihood that another recession could unfold in 2020. So what are these two indicators, the national economy and stock market, telling us about what might happen in 2020?

Since the 1960’s, the economy in the U.S. has been heavily influenced by the baby boom generation. The strong growth in the U.S. economy which began in the 1980’s is attributed to the baby boomers starting their peak earning and spending years. The boom in resort market real estate that started in the 1990’s and continues to this day has its roots in the continuation of the baby boomers earning and spending trend as they reached their 40’s and 50’s when people start buying second and third homes in resort areas. However, with 10,000 baby boomers retiring each day, the influence of the baby boom generation on our economy is beginning to fade. This trend is expected to continue and become more dramatic over the next decade. But there is a new generation of earners and spenders that are about to take the place of the boomers. 

According to Pew Research, this year the millennial generation, which is that segment of the population born between 1985 and 1995 and numbers 73 million, is projected to overtake the 72 million baby boomers to become the largest segment of the American population. The wealth of millennials will grow by five times in the next decade. They are also expected to inherit over $68 trillion from their parents, the wealthiest generation in U.S. history, in what is being called the Great Transfer of Wealth. At 73 million, millennials make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population. Millennials tend to remain single longer and when they do marry, will likely have fewer children. They also tend toward sharing items from cars to real estate more so than previous generations.