Boomers and housing

Judy Schriener is writing a book about the way Boomers are impacting housing design trends. I hope she publishes it soon since there are a lot of people wanting to know the answers.

The headline points made in the article are:

• Many Boomers don’t want to retire. Instead, they plan to take new jobs, start businesses, or involve themselves in volunteer work.
• Many want to stay in town, close to transportation. It is estimated that 60% of Boomers who move stay within their county of residence.
• There’s a clear aging-in-place movement, in which over-50s remodel their homes instead of moving.
• A growing number of university-affiliated retirement communities promise a rich cultural and intellectual environment.
• There is a rise in special-interest communities devoted to pursuits such as music, theater, fishing, or fitness.

I totally agree with Ms Schreiner’s conclusions: “don’t target people by their age but by their lifestyle”. As she says people in their 60s with kids are different from those with grandchildren. And single mothers of similar age are different from empty-nesters. It’s not a homogenous group. Absolutely. Dick Stroud

Property that ages with the owner

The UK Government generates a torrent of rules and regulations. Some are good some are bad (mostly the latter) some get buried in the bureaucracy never to see the light of day.

Yesterday a new set of rules emerged (Lifetime Homes). This time they are to do with making houses age-friendly. To start with they are intended to be ‘guidance’ - until 2010 - with the threat that they will become legal regulations if the building industry doesn’t behave and adopt them.

In practice we might well have a new Government by 2010, most certainly the Government Minister will have changed a couple of times and the building industry will have had a chance to noble the civil servants. My bet is the end result will be nothing changes.

For those of you interested in residential housing for older people these are the things they are supposed to have:

• Bathroom to allow side access to bath and toilet
• Space for a stair-lift.
• Space for a platform lift to the bedroom
• Low window sills
• Walls able to take adaptions
• Space for temporary entrance-level bed
• Living room at entrance level
• Distance from car park kept to minimum
• Easy route for a hoist from bedroom to bathroom
• Sockets and controls at convenient height
• Entrance-level toilet
• Doors and hall wide enough for a wheelchair
• Space for wheelchair turning circle in the living room
• Threshold to home covered and lit
• Parking space capable of being widened
• Level or gently-sloping approach to front door

Most of them are very vague and open to a wide range of interpretation. Dick Stroud

Retirement housing – a few interesting ideas

The concept of ‘cohousing’ is one I haven’t heard before. Well there is an association for ‘it’ in the US.

Cohousing (according to the Web site) is a type of collaborative housing where residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighbourhoods. The developments are usually attached or single-family homes along one or more pedestrian streets or clustered around a courtyard. They range in size from 7 to 67 residences, the majority of them housing 20 to 40 households.

There is a sub-group of cohousing for older people. In Europe there are examples of groups of likeminded people coming together to have their own properties and supporting facilities created. This has always sounded a nice idea in theory but I have always wondered how it works out in practice. What it does indicate is the demand for a more personalised version of retirement housing that will be required in the coming years.

The conference of Australia’s Retirement Village Association produced some interesting research.

Here are few of the factlets (well more like observations) that emerged during the presentations:

The largest sector of over-55s will stay in their own homes with rapid growth in home renovations and modifications to suit age limitations.

90% of people aged over 60 also will stay in their own country (Australia)

Of the rest they will move to country or seaside areas and currently only 5% into retirement lifestyle villages and then after age 75.

Over half of the over-55 age group will still work in some capacity with 60 per cent still servicing a mortgage or other debt and even more without enough superannuation to retire.

Many retirees will remain in the big family home to accommodate adult children returning to live with them while they return to study or recover from broken relationships.

Independent and assisted living units are viable inside malls with lift access and the security of a protected mall that includes food outlets and medical centres. This is a worldwide trend for over-70s to meet at malls and use the temperate interiors as an exercise and socialising arena. Good grief I cannot think of anything I would less want to do!

What a hotch potch of contrary indicators. I guess it illustrates the diversity of the 50-plus age group. Dick Stroud

How to delight women, gays and baby boomers

If you don’t, you should subscribe to the newsletter from Trendwatching, which is an opinionated consumer trends firm that takes a global view on what is driving consumer behaviour and most importantly consumer spending. I really like its style and the scope of its coverage – like the comment about the photo. Yes, we know these pictures are cheesy.

This month’s edition has the eye catching title of “How to delight women, gays and baby boomers”.

It is has some good examples of what is going on with the boomer consumers and the products that are tempting them in the categories of dating, health, travel, homes and housing plus another half a dozen product groups. Definitely worth a look.

What it doesn’t do – I suspect because of space problems – is to look at the interaction of these three groups. Now that is really interesting and a subject I am going to blog a lot more about. Dick Stroud

Equity Release in the US

This is a detailed research report from Fidelity Research Institute that analyses the US housing market and the future of equity release (reverse mortgages).

If you are interested in real estate or the future of funding retirement then this is worth downloading. The bottom line message is - housing is a bad bet as a retirement asset. Dick Stroud