There's an article in today's Intel about 55 and over communities in Lancaster("Growing old with the neighbors"). The article talks about the growing number of baby boomers who are looking for this type of community. As everyone knows, there are a lot of baby boomers reaching retirement age and the choices they make will have a huge impact on our society.
This question of what baby boomers will want in real estate first struck me several years ago when interest in buying investment properties took off. In hindsight, this was the start of the real estate bubble that we're dealing with now. Tech stocks and dot coms had crashed, and it seemed that everyone wanted to buy investment properties or get involved in flipping houses. My own father, who can hardly be described as a trendsetter when it comes to investment strategies, caught the bug in 2002. In a few short years, boomers around the country transferred a tremendous amount of wealth from stocks to real estate.
The average boomer is about 60 years old now -- either still working or newly retired. When people retire, they tend to need more liquid assets in order to replace their salary. You probably know of someone who sold a farm, sold an investment property, or downgrading their home to finance things like retirement travel or home health care. It seems likely that baby boomers are pretty much done buying real estate and will increasingly want to sell the properties they've accumulated.
The health care costs and lifestyle choices of millions of new retirees -- people who have different life style expectations than the retirees of past generations -- will shape the investment world in profound and unknowable ways. Real estate is an important part of this story. If millions of boomers want to sell real estate at the same time, things could get interesting.
If you have ideas about this or know of books/articles, please let me know.
Dean Rock is a full-service real estate professional at Coldwell Banker in Lancaster. Dean's professional and volunteer activities are focused on long term health of Lancaster County's economy and society. Dean's areas of interest include historic homes, land preservation, low-income home ownership, education and youth social work. Click here to learn more about Lancaster PA real estate.
