The Heirs Are Buying Now, and They Don't Buy Like Their Parents

Generational wealth transfer is reshaping luxury demand. Most advisors are still pitching to the people who built the fortune.

The next wave of luxury buyers largely didn't earn the money they are spending. That changes how they buy, and many advisors are still pitching to their parents.

The wealth transfer everyone has been predicting for a decade is no longer a forecast. Industry data estimates that roughly $6 trillion was inherited in 2025 alone, making generational wealth transfer a major driver of luxury real estate demand, alongside a sharp rise in foreign buyer activity in the U.S. That money is moving into real estate in two directions at once, and advisors who only see one of them are missing half the business.

The first direction is disposition. Heirs inherit property: the family home, the lake house nobody visits, the commercial building a parent owned for thirty years. These assets often arrive with siblings who disagree, a trust that owns them, deferred maintenance nobody budgeted for, and carrying costs that quietly erode the estate every month the decision is postponed. The sentimental value is real. So is the property tax bill.

The second direction is acquisition. What heirs choose to buy often looks very different from what they inherited. Across my own client base, the pattern is consistent: less interest in a single grand primary residence, more interest in mobility, multiple locations, and ownership that doesn't require them to manage anything. Lock-and-leave product. Serviced and branded residences. Destination markets they have actually spent time in. Properties that can be rented when they are not there, and sold without drama when life changes.

They also decide differently. Inherited wealth is frequently held through trusts, family entities, or jointly among siblings. That means decisions are made by committee, with a wealth advisor, an estate attorney, and a CPA in the room or on the email. The heir may be the one touring the property, but they are rarely the only one who gets a vote.

Here is the strategic point. For heirs, these are not two separate transactions. The disposition funds the acquisition, and the timing, tax treatment, and structure of one affects the other. An advisor who sells the inherited property well but has no view on what comes next hands the client off at the exact moment they need guidance. An advisor who can see both sides becomes the person the family calls for the next twenty years.

Cross-border questions sharpen this further. A younger buyer searching globally from a phone may find a villa in Portugal or a residence in Mexico as easily as a condo across town. The property search is effortless. The ownership structure, tax exposure, and exit plan are not. That is where the broker's value lies, and it is exactly why that work has to be coordinated with the client's attorney and CPA rather than improvised.

My view is that the broker's job with heirs is not to sell them a lifestyle. They have plenty of people doing that. The job is to be the person at the table who understands what each asset actually does for the family: what it earns, what it costs, what it is really worth, and what it would take to exit. Heirs respond to candor. They have usually spent years watching their parents make decisions and have strong opinions about which ones they want to repeat.

That is also the buyer I had in mind when I built Airdomo. It is a platform for people who shop the world before they shop the neighborhood, and who expect the information to be as good as the photography.

If you lead a wealth management firm, family office, or estate planning practice and want your team prepared for these conversations, I speak on this topic regularly and would welcome the invitation. The families are already asking the questions. The only issue is who answers them first.

Wealth advisors and estate attorneys: when a client inherits real estate, what is the most common mistake you see in the first twelve months?