Don't Assume All Baby Boomers Are the Same by Al Heavens
When we first started talking seriously about aging in place a few years ago, I asked a prominent residential builder what he thought of the idea of constructing houses that could accommodate changes in the lives of the occupants. The builder couldn't see past his own bottom line. "Why do we need to build houses that people can live in for more than a few years?" he asked. "That would mean that we would lose money and go out of business." Although residential builders are going through a bad patch these days, there doesn't seem to be any indication that these problems have been caused by the concept of aging in place. It seems pretty clear, however, that builders who do follow trends fare better than those who don't, and taking into account that buyers with the deepest pockets are older and are looking for a place to hang their hats for more than a couple of years makes a lot of sense. Several years ago, at a meeting of the National Association of Realtors, I attended a seminar on how to deal with older buyers. The point that each of the speakers made was that it took these buyers longer than anyone else to make up their minds about moving. One Realtor said that he had been dealing with one 80-year-old client since she was 75, and he didn't she was yet ready to make a commitment. There are reasons why aging homeowners cannot make up their minds to move quickly, and the most important one is emotional: It is difficult to give up the familiar. A lot of people who sell their houses after 20 or 30 years moved to active-adult developments within a few miles, keeping the same barber, shopping at the same stores, eating at familiar restaurants, hanging out with the same friends. What got me thinking about all of this was a recent study of aging baby boomers by the National Association of Home Builders that was released at the Builders Show in February. The study found that while the 55 years and older market is becoming an increasingly important focus of the nation's housing industry as members of the baby boom approach the traditional retirement years, builders hoping to entice households into new homes may find the going tough because older Americans are happy with where they live. The study looked at the very large target audience for housing for aging Americans, at the characteristics of the homes in which members of this population live, as well as factors behind their moving decisions, to suggest opportunities for tapping into this market. The data for the study was obtained from the 2005 American Housing Survey, and that data show that the ability of builders to tap into the growing market of aging boomers is complicated by the fact that most of the households surveyed were satisfied with the communities in which they live. When households in the 55 to 64 age bracket were asked by the AHS to rate their communities on a scale of one to 10, with 10 representing the best, 48 percent gave them a nine or 10, and that favorable response climbed with age, reaching 57 percent for households age 75 and older. More than three-quarters of the 55 to 64 group responded with a rating of eight or higher. "This is consistent with the low incidence of community 'dis-amenities' reported by older households and suggests that developers of age-qualified housing intended for older residents have a substantial hurdle to overcome in attracting these residents away from their current neighborhoods," the NAHB report stated. Fully 70 percent of the 26 million 55+ households in 2005 lived in "ordinary" communities that were not age-qualified or mostly occupied by people their age. More than three-fourths of households age 55 or older moved into their current residence before 2000 -- 36.9 percent before 1980, 15.5 percent between 1980 and 1989 and 24.6 percent from 1990 to 1999. In contrast, 30.4 percent of households under age 45 had moved within the previous year. Asked on the AHS to rate their current home on the same scale, 55+ households on average gave their home a score of 8.6. That, the NAHB says, further suggests that developers have their work cut out for them. The solution, I believe, is for builders to find out what buyers want rather than what they think buyers want. That sounds strange, considering all the focus groups and marketing surveys around, but both those methods gauge reactions to what is being offered. Builders need to do more listening. They also need to start looking at aging boomers not as a single group but as many different ones, with different needs, but, more importantly, widely divergent incomes. Assuming that all boomers are wealthy is unrealistic. Boomers are as a diverse a group as any. One size or price-point does not fit all. Until it does, most of them will continue to stay put. | 
