What's happened to the used high end market recently?? Sales are tough....:0(

@fleschler 

Your housing and square footage numbers, while likely numerically correct, may be disproprotionately skewing the data. Using your home as an example which sounds to be in excess of 4,000 square feet, you have to admit most young people don’t own or rent homes in that size. Many highly educated young people relocate to where the jobs are and the better jobs are generally in LA, San Diego, SF Bay area, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte....where I live home prices easily exceed $1,000 per sq foot.  As far as garages, I see fewer 20 and 30 somethings driving suburbans or 4 door extended cab dually pickups but they are out there, theres no denying that fact. One nice thing though is some older homes were built to hold a 1975 Cadillac so there isnt much built today that wont fit.  

I figure the typical home being constructed in the typical town today is probably 2,500-2,750 sq feet. But young people today may not be able to afford the typical new home. The point I was making is that young, budding audiophiles arent likely to allow their audio to intrude into the living space that your generation might have. TVs mount on the wall so thats no issue, one less spot for a velvet Elvis picture!  Thats all I was trying to communicate.

The boomer generation is shrinking and aging, and with it the HEA market.  So, the question is, why isn't the millennial generation into HEA.  There are many reasons of course, but i believe a big factor is that the nature of popular music has dictated the decline of high end audio. If you look at the top 100 songs, very few feature actual instruments. The vast majority are created on computers. Kids are not listening to jazz or rock anymore as they did in the 70s and 80s.  High end audio is made to reproduce the sound of actual instruments. That's the magic. Hearing a real guitar or piano in your living room. If there are no real instruments on a recording there is no need for high end reproduction. There is no need for high end audio to reproduce a sound or beat created on a computer because there is no actual reference to reproduce. The reference is whatever you are listening to your computer with when you created the beat or sound. ... Just one man's opinion.

@terpstation,
I don’t happen to believe the millennial generation is not interested in the sound of actual instruments. I think that millennials have a great deal of choice in which to spend their hard earned money, if...BIG IF, HEA was more affordable to them..and more of them knew of the existence of HEA, then I think we would be seeing a resurgent and growing market. Instead, it would appear that the current generation of HEA manufacturer’s have thrown their lot in with those that believe it is imperative to make a quick buck and to max profits while they can. Not saying all of the HEA manufacturer’s are going down this route, but unfortunately for the hobby, this trend does seem to be expanding!

Given inflated high end prices, the collapse in secondary sales prices may reflect what this stuff is really worth

@fstein 

Maybe, except what you stated doesn't account for the 'collapse'.