[VIDEO] Auto-Buying ‘Booms’ for Older Drivers

Perhaps the auto industry should start focusing its advertising and marketing dollars less on the oft-talked about Millennials and more on the baby boomers.

Boomers are spending a lot more money than any other generation, to the tune of about $400 billion a year, according to a Bloomberg.com video from earlier this week. Among their purchases? Cars.

The oldest boomers, those ages 55 to 64, are most likely to buy a car, discovered a new report from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. That age bracket replaced the 35-to-44 group who just four years ago were the most likely to purchase a car.

And since boomers “have all the money,” as one commentator said in the Bloomberg video, many of them can buy cars with something a lot of their younger counterparts cannot: cash.

Car buyers in the 50-and-older bracket who do seek out auto finance are also more likely to have better credit scores and better payment records. For example, a recently unveiled tool from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed that the majority of borrowers ages 50 and older in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut had credit scores of at least 620 and a delinquency rate less than 5%.