Baby Boomers The final rising demographic – baby boomers – have needs that may be easier to figure out. The more affluent are the most likely to be able to afford the luxury products being built today. They want spacious locations located downtown – near museums, restaurants, and public transportation.
In general, meeting the needs of baby boomers shouldn’t be difficult, except for those with fixed incomes. Then things become trickier.
Costa says there won’t be enough affordable units to meet supply in the coming years. Simpson Housing Solutions “developed 8,000 senior units over the past 10 years, and we can’t keep up with the demand,” he says. “I could go back to most of the communities where I have developed and they would fill up just as fast.”
Baby boomers need power outlets higher up on the wall so that they don’t have to bend over to plug in appliances and electronics, lower cabinets, and grab bars in bathrooms. The apartments for low-income baby boomers are small, but this demographic likes to have a bedroom and living room so they can entertain guests and family, according to Costa.
A Ways To Go Knowing that baby boomers on fixed incomes like having living rooms and bedrooms and that many immigrants like units with more bedrooms is important, but it’s only part of the battle. The other part, of course, is providing these products.
With developers still in a luxury apartment mindset, this is the most difficult challenge. “I think we are all creatures of habit,” Terwilliger says. “Most of us, like me and my company, have made a good living for the past 20 years building market-rate middle-income and, to some extent, upper-income apartments.”
While the industry is a long way off from serving the needs of these future residents, some companies are starting to take the first steps in the right direction. In addition to Trammell Crow’s project in Houston, the SARES-REGIS Group wants to build apartments that have few amenities but are affordable for immigrants in Los Angeles. AvalonBay Communities, a real estate investment trust based in Alexandria, Va., plans to offer more studios and rehabbed class B products for echo boomers.
Eventually, others will have to move out of the luxury apartment mindset and follow these examples if they want to meet these rising demographic challenges.
