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The average tenure of a homeowner in Greater Hartford ticked up again last year, according to new research by brokerage and listings portal Redfin.

It’s part of a similar trend across the country that’s being driven by older homeowners not selling their homes, the brokerage’s researchers reported.

However unlike the nation at large, whose average homeowner tenure peaked in 2020 at 13.4 years, and is now down to 11.9 years thanks in part to the surge of new pandemic home sales, Hartford’s average homeowner tenure is still increasing. Census Bureau data cited by Redfin says it went from 13.2 percent in 2022 to 13.4 percent last year.

More affordable metros, largely in the South, that have attracted significant numbers of new migrants and new jobs in recent  years see much shorter time between home sales: 7.4 years in Louisville, Kentucky and 8.5 years in Nashville, Tennessee and the Charlotte and Raleigh metro areas in North Carolina.

Other than migration helping drive down homeowner tenure in the Sun Belt, the other main force pulling on different metro areas’ housing markets is Baby Boomers’ reluctance to sell, Redfin researchers wrote.

Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s Baby Boomers have lived in their home for at least 20 years, Census Bureau data shows, and another 16 percent have lived in their home between 10 and 19 years. That compares to 35 percent of Gen Xers who have lived in their home for at least 10 years and 7 percent of Millennials.

This disparity is driven by the fact that over half of Boomers no longer owe anything on their mortgages, meaning their monthly budgets may not necessarily have room for a housing payment, and those that still have loans generally have much lower mortgage rates than those available now, thanks to the pandemic refinancing boom.

In addition, some states’ tax structures encourage people to stay in their homes past age 65, and many older Americans also prefer to age in place instead of downsizing or moving to an assisted living facility, with medical technology making that more possible.