Investment propertyActive-Adult Boomers Still Favor Suburbs
A growing number of aging baby boomers may be moving to revitalized downtown areas, but most active-adult developments are still being built in the suburbs.
Nine of the top 10 counties in the nation for recent active-adult home construction are in the suburbs, showing the tendency of many older buyers to move just outside metropolitan areas. Nine of the counties are in the Southwest and Colorado; one is in Florida.
"About three-quarters of the active-adult communities that are built are in close-in suburbs or outer suburbs, although downtown areas are steadily gaining popularity," said Bonnie Solomon, chairwoman of the National Association of Home Builders Seniors Housing Council and a vice president of several retirement communities in St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Atlanta.
"Builders are simply responding to the market demand," Solomon said.
The term baby boomer includes people born between 1946 and 1964, meaning those who are now 40 to 58 years old. There are 85 million baby boomers in the United States, according to various estimates. Many boomers are moving to active-adult communities before they retire, choosing to change addresses as soon as their children have moved out.
Many boomer buyers are buying before they quit working. Between 20 percent and 50 percent of those who buy houses in age-qualified active-adult developments by Pulte"s Del Webb unit do not plan to retire when they move in, for example. Those percentages depend largely on the availability of full-time or part-time employment nearby.
Surveys have consistently shown that a majority of boomers plan to work after age 65, whether full time or part time. Retirement today can span 40 active years. Financial concerns seem to weigh heavily on 55-year-olds as they approach retirement age.
Boomers are still uncertain how much money they will need to finance retirement. One survey showed that fewer than half of those polled said $500,000 or more, while 17 percent suggested they would need at least $1 million.
Baby boomers are making the active-adult market younger. Even if boomers move into such housing before turning 55, they do not dramatically alter their lives. They continue to work by consulting or telecommuting. They also tend to remain in the areas in which they had been living.
The difference between the baby boomers and their parents is that the parents were willing to defer gratification until they reached retirement age, while the baby boomers want it all now, experts say. They also do not seem to think becoming empty nesters will have an effect on their retirement.
Reaching empty-nester status is much less traumatic for boomers than it was for their parents, according to Linda Burghardt, author of The Happy Empty Nest (Citadel Press, $19.95), a boomer empty nester herself.
"Boomers have higher expectations than their parents about life in the empty nest," she said. "In our parents" generation, women especially were much more depressed when they became empty nesters. The world did not allow women a self-image positive enough so they could embrace this change.
"Boomer women have been allowed to express their creativity in so many ways, not just their careers, and this will continue after their children leave."
Burghardt suggests that empty nesters should talk about goals and fanciful wishes, and to look "at this stage as a new opportunity, not a loss."
Although children leaving home appears to be the catalyst for boomers to move to active-adult developments, this newfound independence often does not last long. Almost 25 percent of boomers responding to surveys say they think their children will move back with them.
Such "boomerang kids" appear to be a growing social phenomenon. More than 25 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 live with their parents, the Census Bureau reports. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, 56 percent of men and 43 percent of women live with one or both parents.
A Del Webb survey of its baby boomer buyers found that 65 percent would be happy if their grown children moved back in, and that almost 25 percent would feel obligated to help. Fathers were more eager than mothers to find other living arrangements for their adult children, the survey found.
What about their own parents? Baby boomers have also been tagged with the nickname the sandwich generation.
The Del Webb survey of 1,174 adults ranging in age from 40 to 70 found that 24 percent expected their parents to move in with them, and that half would be happy about it. More than half said they would feel obligated to help, and only 17 percent said they would be eager to find them other living arrangements.
Eight percent of the boomers responding to the survey said they would charge their parents rent.