Boomers have led the way in many social areas over their lifetimes – creating or redefining various pursuits – and now they have embraced aging in place and are demonstrating how people can remain at home.
Boomers are getting older
Over the past seventy-five years or so, Baby Boomers have been born, reared, educated, employed, and now are looking forward to their remaining years on their own terms. For most of them, this means aging in place in their present home.
Boomers have had the opportunity to live in several different homes throughout their lifetimes, and many of them did – some more than others. We know the Boomers as a group owned about half of the single-family homes in this country.
Should it really come as any surprise that they want to remain in their homes rather than give them up as some type of artificial rite of passage for the next generation coming along to have what the Boomers have enjoyed? Or should builders have been anticipating this over the past few decades and added to the available housing supply? If there is a housing shortage, it is from the supply side.
Is homeownership a right?
Owning a home may not be a right guaranteed to us by the constitution or any other documents or statutes, but neither is it prohibited, discouraged, or denied. It is, in fact, encouraged. The mortgage interest deductions are an incentive for homeownership – not to mention all of the federal and state lenders and lending programs that exist.
Nowhere is it written that someone (in this case Boomers) should move from their homes at a certain point and leave the homes they have loved and where they have spent a significant portion of their lives to allow someone else who wants it to acquire it. Boomers don’t want to move, and even if they did, there’s that shortage issue again – only from the older end rather the younger side. Where would they move to get what they desire?
Keeping Up With Demand
There are so many issues involved on the supply side of making living spaces available to anyone who wants and can afford to have one. Rental opportunities exist, but often, homes to own are not available where people want them and at a price that is reasonable for them.
There certainly is a place in the market for the large statement home, and those don’t seem to be in short supply. Even if one isn’t available, it can be designed and built as a custom home. Where the marketplace is coming up short is the single-family home – the mainstay of America – of a size and price point that works well for people today and several years into the future.
With the difficulty many people are having in finding their first home to acquire, it’s less likely than in years past that they will give that up in search of something else. That means that they will be looking to us as CAPS professionals to assist them with any safety, comfort, or accessibility issues present in their homes as they remain living in them.