Residential developments court older homeowners

At the National Association of Home Builders’ 2007 Building for Boomers & Beyond 50+ Housing Symposium, industry leaders said baby boomers will be a driving force in the housing industry for the next two decades.

NAHB’s current economic and housing forecast shows that housing units sold to or occupied by 55+ households will account for more than 370,000 housing starts this year.

Matt Morrow, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield said several developments in southwest Missouri are directly aimed at members of the baby boomer generation.

Among those is Autumn Corners 55+ at Copper Leaf in Nixa. Autumn Corners is being developed by Hall Investments and features 76 maintenance-free condos and amenities including a lake with lighted fountains and a walking trail.

Teresa Hall, managing partner with Hall Investments and a licensed Realtor with Century 21, said retirement-living developments pay special attention to details, and incorporate measures such as limiting the number of steps in a home, widening doorways, maximizing natural light and installing safety handles throughout.

The goal, she said, is to make maintaining a home easier for older homeowners.

“More baby boomers are moving into the arena of retirement, and a lot of people are finding that traditional home ownership carries a lot of responsibilities as well as a lot of cost in upkeep,” she said.

Hall’s work in the retirement-living sector began more than 20 years ago, when she worked for the state of Missouri as a nursing home inspector. Later, she helped develop Elfindale Retirement Community. Today, Hall said, there are between eight and 10 housing developments in Springfield.

Designs of the future

Architects Rob Haik and Brent Stevens, partners in H Design Group, are keyed in to the growing interest in retirement-living developments. In the past few years, they’ve been transitioning their design work from the saturated multifamily sector into the retirement-living arena.

“We’ve got several projects that are either currently being drawn, currently being constructed, or are already occupied that cater to the different levels of elderly living,” Stevens said.

Key to those developments, he said, is that baby boomers are looking for more controlled environments in which to live.

“A lot of these projects have condominium associations that take care of all of the outside of the buildings and all the lawn care, so people are just downsizing,” he said.

Haik said retirement-living developments also need space for more amenities, such as coffee shops, theaters and tennis courts.

Morrow said builders can earn an Aging-In-Place designation through the NAHB, and local HBA members have expressed interest in NAHB’s 50+ Housing Council.

That growing interest is important, he added, because builders as a whole must meet housing stock demands.

“As the baby boomers age and move toward retirement and retirement living, it’s naturally going to be a significant part of the command of the housing market, and that’s what professional builders look toward,” he said.[[In-content Ad]]