Baby boomers now own a majority of U.S. homes and have the financial means to stay where they are, keeping the housing market stuck for the foreseeable future, according to top Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney.

The CEO of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, whose prediction of the Great Financial Crisis earned her the moniker “Oracle of Wall Street,” pointed out in a Financial Times op-ed that more than 54% of homes are owned by seniors, up from 44% in 2008.

She added that 79% of seniors own their homes, and three-fourths of them don’t have a mortgage, meaning they have an enormous amount of equity that can help cover rising homeownership costs, such as insurance.

“This has made it easier for seniors to hold on to their homes by tapping into some of this built-up equity,” Whitney

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