Real Sage Advice

More Men in Senior Housing

Walk through any Senior housing community in Minnesota, and you'll see large number of women wandering the halls, with a noticeable shortage of men. My male clients that move in to senior housing communities have lots of stories to tell about their instant change in social status when they move into these communities. Men become celebrities-of-sorts with invitations to lunch, phone numbers being tucked under their doors and a social calendar that is as busy as they want it to be. For the first time in their lives, they aren't the ones doing the pursuing! 

Marketdigest posted an interesting article with quotes from Glenn Sheriff, the senior director of marketing analytics for Brookdale Senior Living:

The most significant numbers...are noted when looking at the overall trend from 2004 until now.

We do have an upward trend in male move-ins year to year.

Other Blog Articles

Brookdale Senior Living
Senior Condominium or Senior Cooperative-What's the difference?

Senior Housing Wish List-What do Boomers Want?

Open a paper, turn on the TV, or while you're surfing the internet you'll see an article about real estate. Everyone has a prediction about when the real estate market will turn around and no one seems to agree. Let me introduce you to my simple math: In areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul we have about 11 months of inventory on the market. I suspect it will take at least 8 months before we start to see home prices begin normal appreciation (3-7% per year) again.

This conversation bores me. It's like hearing the same song on the radio over and over again. It's much more interesting to talk about what will happen to the housing inventory with the demand baby boomers will place on the market. Perhaps I think this conversation is so much more interesting because there isn't really anyone talking about it. It's a good thing I don't mind talking to myself!

The real estate market today is the result of a number of historical events that developed into the perfect storm. I'm starting to wonder if there is something parallel happening with the senior housing industry. There is a widening gap between what my baby boomer clients say they want, and what is available on the market.

Disclaimer: My observations about baby boomers are in no way meant to apply to the entire baby boomer cohort. These are my observations of working with elder clients and their adult children with their housing needs. Perhaps the clients I work with are the exception (they are exceptional) to the large scale, expensive market research studies the senior housing industry has conducted. Whether my clients are the exception or representative of a larger segment of boomers there is a segment of boomers clamering for something "different" than what the senior housing builders are providing.

Nursing Homes-We don't want you, but we need you
We all dream of a day nursing homes disappear. The paradoxical truth will remain that as medicine advances and keeps us alive longer, we will outlive the capabilities of our bodies, and many of us will need 24 hour nursing care. While it may look much less institutional than today, they will still exist in one form or another.

I don't want to live with old people
Baby boomers are saying they aren't too keen on age-segregated housing. Yet, I look around at the new construction of the large senior housing companies and they are flooding the market with 55+ housing and assisted living communities with more amenities that a gold crown resort.

I don't want to be put out to pasture
Baby boomers want to stay viable and active in their communities. They have a second half of life filled with new opportunities that won't center around shuffle-board. If baby boomers continue to live full active busy lives, will they have time to use the indoor putting green, wave pool and party room in the age segregated housing they don't want to live in?

I want to live in "MY" community
If builders can figure out a way to package and sell a community instead of a brick and mortar senior housing structure bloated with amentities boomers won't use, they'll make a mint!

We are already seeing the first grass-root efforts to define age friendly communities. In Minnesota, St. Louis Park has the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs), and Monterey is the first co-housing community in the Twin Cities and there are others underway.

I'm just a real estate agent who specializes in helping elders with senior housing options. I'm not an economist. But I'd like to know...what will happen with all of the new assisted living structures that are being built, if boomers don't want to live in them?

Other Articles:

Real Estate Investors, Give Those Baby Boomers What They Want

5 Pitfalls of Looking for Elder Care and Senior Housing on the Internet

Senior Condominium vs. Senior Cooperative, What's the Difference?

Seniors Stay at Home with NORCs

Who are the renters in senior housing?

The National Association of Home Builders wrote a summary of the American Housing Survey of senior consumers and what they want from housing and/or senior communities.

In the single-family detached housing market, 55+ customers on average looked at 10 homes before deciding upon a unit, about the same as younger households. However, single-family customers in the oldest age bracket (75+) only look at about four homes before making their final choice. Customers who chose multifamily housing looked at considerably fewer units (about five) before moving in, possibly because those who rent spend less effort on finding a unit than buyers.

I'd like to suggest a couple of other reasons those looking at multifamily housing look at fewer units:

1. If the consumer is looking at a rental senior housing community, it's often because they are older (buying a condominium for equity doesn't make sense for them, so they are choosing to rent-plus the average age is about 80+ in independent rental communities!), and if they are older, they are likely looking for a community that can offer them some health care services (such as assistance with meals or bathing).
2. If they are looking for a community with services, there may have been a life-event that short circuited their ability to spend a lot of time looking (such as the death of a spouse, or change in health status).
3. Trying to navigate the maze of senior housing and health care services is a daunting task. Who would have the energy to look at more than 5?!?

This phenomena of renters not looking at a lot of different communities has much more to do with whether the consumer is renting or buying.

A note to Minnesota Senior Housing Communities: The consumer has already narrowed the list of the number of communities he/she is considering. Vacancy rates for these rental communities are climbing everyday and your competition continues to increase.  Therefore, when you have a consumer who comes to you looking for a home, you had better dazzle them with a friendly tour, a clean-up to date building, a spacious apartment that you're willing to adapt to meet the consumer's needs, ample storage, and plenty of opportunities for transportation to get groceries and prescriptions. Listen to what your consumer wants and figure out a way to give it to them!

I don't want to live with old people

I was at a client's home tonight ( a 72 year-young widow) and we were talking about her moving out of the home where she raised her family, and into something smaller.  I asked her about senior communities, she wrinkled up her nose and said "I don't want to live with a bunch of old people with creaky bones! I want to be somewhere where I can see regular people."  This is a common sentiment.  How will the builders in Minnesota respond?

When households in the 55 to 64 age bracket were asked by the American Housing Survey (AHS) to rate their communities on a scale of one to 10, with 10 representing the best, 48% gave them a nine or 10, and that favorable response climbed with age, reaching 57% for households age 75 and older. More than three-quarters of the 55 to 64 group responded with a rating of eight or higher.

Perhaps Senior Housing developers should invest time and money on thinking about how to change the current idea of segregated-by-age housing and come up with an idea that's more appealing, both to the baby boomers and the older generation of seniors. Quit spending your marketing dollars trying to figure out how to fit our seniors into a mold they don't want. Time to re-ceate the mold.

Perhaps the idea of age-segregated housing has itself become antiquated.  Will the current configuration of independent senior living apartments go by way of the dinosaur?

Tags: minnesota realtor, senior housing, senior real estate specialist, certified senior housing, senior indepedent living, senior housing

Seniors Migrate North

It used to be a generally agreed upon concept that once a senior (75 and older) decides it's time to move, they want to stay within 10-15 miles of their current home. Let's face it, change gets harder as we get older. If we don't have to find a new hairdresser, new post office, new pharmacist, why would we? In Minnesota we have such a large array of senior housing, that we were generally able to accommodate a senior who wanted to stay close to home. Along with this stereotype there exists one that says all older boomers will be buying vacation homes or moving to Florida or Arizona. Well, the Census Bureau Survey is going to debunk our stereotypes about seniors.

A few months ago I was talking with the property manager at The Crossings, a senior community in Brooklyn Park. He shared with me that more and more of his referrals were coming from seniors who were relocating to come back home. Professionals in the senior communities in Minnesota already knew what the survey was going to tell us-- older seniors are moving back home- even if home is Minnesota (brrr). what the survey was going to tell us. Older Seniors are moving back home, yes even to Minnesota, to be with their families.

Here are some interesting statistics from the survey:

• For the first time since the depression, there are more Americans over 75 leaving Florida, than moving there.
• From 2001 to 2005, 121,000 Seniors over 75 left Florida, and 87,000 arrived

What a nice gain this was for retirement states like Florida. Have young healthy retirees with disposable income come visit your state for 15 years, then when they've lost a spouse, or it's become too difficult to "summer" with their families they move back home, where they will likely need to access more health care resources. I wonder what impact this will have on the nurse shortage in Minnesota and on the types of housing available. Builders, are you paying attention?

I'm sure there are lots of reasons for this new change. I suppose it doesn't matter. It's nice to be with your family.