Golden rush is on for senior housing

Florida is overrated. Arizona is nice, but the summer days are scorchers. California is beautiful but way too expensive. And Hawaii? Forget about it.

As baby boomers — the nation’s largest segment of the population — begin to ease into their retirement years, these are the answers more and more are giving when it comes to the paramount golden-years question: “Where do you want to retire?”

Their conclusion is they would rather stay put, according to two studies by AARP and the National Association of Home Builders and Countrywide Homes.

“These seniors are not looking to migrate; they want to stay close to their family and friends,” said Jack L. Haynes, executive vice president of the National Builder Division at Countrywide Homes, based in Plano, Texas. “But they are also looking for different types of lifestyles we have never seen before.”

That was the case for Mary Gesiakowski and her husband, Gerald. The Illinois natives moved last year to a single-family home in a new retirement community, Grand Haven, in the Chicago suburb of Romeoville. The Gesiakowskis’ new home is less than an hour’s drive from where they have raised their two children.

“We wanted to stay close because of our children,” said Mrs. Gesiakowski, 57. “And they wanted us to stay close. They are not happy when we go out of town for too long.”

The Gesiakowskis are typical of the NAHB/Countrywide study, which also has found:

Nearly half of buyers desire to be closer to children, grandchildren and other family.

Convenience is a major plus for senior buyers. More than three-quarters of the builders have developed communities for those 50 and older in close proximity to shopping centers, with many homes close to churches or medical facilities.

About two-thirds of builders report that their customers are relocating within their communities or states.

“The study dispels the common perception that seniors prefer to move to traditional warmer-weather retirement destinations like their parents did,” said Kent Conine, president of NAHB and a home and apartment builder from Dallas. “An overwhelming majority of seniors want to live near their loved ones or in the communities where they have put down roots.”

Why stay put? Research from the NAHB found that boomers, the more than 77 million people born between 1946 and 1964, were much more tied to roots and families than their parents. They also tended to be closer to their children than their parents were to them.

One thing is certain: This lack of interest in moving has nothing to do with a lack a money.

“Baby boomers are the largest and wealthiest segment of the population,” said Leslie Marks, executive director of the NAHB’s Seniors Housing Council. “Not only do they have their own money, but they stand to inherit quite a bit a money from their parents, who are traditionally the savers.”

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