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Why are so many 55+ neighborhoods being built?
Living in northern Virginia, it seems like half of newly-constructed homes are earmarked for "active adult" 55 and up communities.
Is there a financial incentive above and beyond normal residential construction that these are popping up more?
It seems like a newer trend that's picked up in the last 5 or 10 years.
Edit 1: Thank you all for the input and sharing your perspective. It's just been a question hanging in the back of my mind as I've been driving around in recent months.
With absolutely no data to back up my claim, I’d guess that’s just what baby boomers prefer. My parents are boomers and they hate everyone that isn’t them.
I’m kind of surprised by the negativity here. Do you think it could also be that people like to be around people in similar stages of life? The same reason families like to live where other families live? It makes it easy to form bonds and build community when you’re around other people who share your interests and values.
Honestly, I think a mixed community is probably healthier.
Kids are pretty annoying if they aren't yours. I'd happily live in a place without them, smack and crack heads and screaming alcoholics. Unfortunately I have all of those in my estate
I don't hate kids but when my neighbors are letting them run wild screaming at the top of their lungs while I'm trying to rest after work or on days off yea I will strongly dislike them. And I'm not a boomer or Gen X but an older Millennial. So from this perspective I could understand why older people would want to avoid that if possible.
Not my experience, but okay.
I think the negativity comes from an avenue of the investments still being made with older generations in mind. When downtown real estate is being remodeled into a senior living center and not, say, affordable housing for young childless adults who want to be near the city center - people tend to get bitter.
Now, and please know this is only personal experience so likely not representative of every major metro across the U.S. (and less so internationally), but they're either building new high-end apartments or 55+ communities around me - can't afford one, not allowed in the other.
Just as an exploration of "Why should we build more places that only older, more privileged generations have access to?" And the hopeful answer is they sell their houses but, my cynical experience here is that most of their places are likely in the low 600s now and being bought up by developers to be flipped into a 1.4 million house instead.
So, hence the negativity.
To an extent. But then you’ve got people like my parents who have spent their lives making sure they’re around nothing but other white Christians…which just reenforces their disdain for everyone else.
Now not EVERY boomer is like that, but my parents definitely aren’t unique.
Aren't baby boomers 70 - 80 years old by now?
I believe it's much more simple. They're targeting people that are supposed to sell their first house to move there, so they don't have to finance the house that much but have the capital already, and are less of a risk.
The youngest boomers are late 50s.
Very late though, as in 59 years old. But yes, I was off by 10 years.
So they're targeting old Gen-x and all the boomers.
55 and up implies everyone in their 80’s too.
These rulings are almost always to prevent young families from moving in so all the old people can live in silence.
That is not developers problem though, that is hoa. By then they can change the bingo hall to depression/anxiety den
A lot of NIMBYs push hard against affordable housing, because they don't want ((poor)) people living near them, but they're much less likely to oppose "55+ affordable housing". Lots of 55+ communities being built near me as well, and I see it on our local Facebook group. People are irate about housing "what about school crowding!" and irate about cost "I don't want affordable housing!" and all their complaints stop after they're informed it's 55+.
Oh man, have I the fearmongery NIMBY panic notice for you, that showed up all over the neighborhoods around where my folks used to live 5 years ago (when I took this picture), in an upper middle class suburban town.
Even 55+ doesn't stop some of these people from panicking about the thought of anyone with less money than them moving nearby.
There's also an irony in that cleaning company's flyer taped below it offering a measly $12.25/hr part time to work for them.
Yeah, the wealthy need low income people to work in their community to provide the type of consumerism they require…but they want those people bussed in, not living among them. Or drive, it’s why our insane sprawling cities are so congested, inefficient, and anti-human. Hardly anyone can afford to live where they actually work.
No surprise there. Lots of people are always complaining about any kind of housing of any form. As if the entire universe needs to cater directly to their equity. One of my hobbies is looking up the public records of people who complain about home equity impacts to see how much equity they have in their property (at least based on the original purchase price; no accounting for irresponsible equity practices).
That’s really good to know. My parents moved into a 55+ in Marana about a decade ago, I didn’t realize it could feasibly be an option for my sister/me if it was needed some day. Hopefully any of those sorts of decisions are a long long ways off tho.
Such a weird thing to actively avoid.
Is it? I hate living near kids.
Sounds like there’s money to be made in that market. I see a lot of them popping up here in Georgia as well.
It's also housing that people can actually afford, since it's priced out to be affordable on a social security check. Which means there's money to be made there now and not in a nebulous future when letting those overpriced buildings that nobody can afford because you're not willing to let prices drop finally pay off.
On a side note, it's infuriating that these places exist. It's flat out housing discrimination, and the argument the courts have used to ignore the Civil rights act in order to allow age discrimination but only in one direction (that old people are historically disadvantaged and therefore need extra protection) is a clear violation of the equal protection clause.
A friend of mine works for a national builder. He told me that municipalities like these developments because they come with a positive tax base, but consume fewer services. Since people that age usually don't have kids at home, and there are often rules in these neighborhoods saying that children can't live there anyway, they won't be sending kids to schools (which usually makes up a huge portion on municipal expenditure).
Personally, I'd find these places rather appealing if I were that age. They're single family homes in a quiet neighborhood with likely responsible neighbors, good amenities, and included landscaping services. Hell, I'm 35 with no kids and kinda wish I could move into one now.
Can’t speak to any financial incentives to builders over normal residential construction, but after spending a good amount of time at my parents place I can see the appeal of living in one (at least one like theirs). Both my parents are active, they run, hike, bike, etc daily and where they live gives them easy access to that. Plus they’re on a golf course, the view is gorgeous, there’s pools/hot tubs, a gym, fitness classes, restaurant/bar, every club you can imagine for activities, a kiln for my moms pottery, etc.
It’s AZ so plenty of NIMBY, don Cheeto types around - and my parents are quite liberal. That said, it doesn’t seem like many people in their development are actually from Arizona…and two sets of their friends from MN also bought places there, as well as an aunt. Getting old with some of your best friends and family at a nice ass place with tons of amenities seems pretty good to me.
I think it’s just a demographics thing. There’s a large chunk of the population that has money, is aging, but is still relatively healthy . A lot of them seem to be taking some of the more self centered Boomer “I got mine” ideas and NIMBYism into old age. So communities exclusive to them and focused on them makes sense. I also would bet there’s a healthy chunk of fear there but as I said this is all pure speculation. You can watch some of the docs on the infamous Florida Villages community to see a bit of what I’m alluding to.
Once again probably worth emphasizing that this age group possesses a huge amount of the money and assets available and a lot of them are retired and looking to change things up/spend it.
The US population is trending older, and those older folks are living longer.
At least near where I am I believe 55+ communities have lower tax burdens, but only so long as they don't have more than X people living in them under the 55.
Googling around I haven't been able to find anything to support that though, so maybe it's a load of bull I made up.
My best guess would be that due to high costs of land and construction, developers want to focus on building construction with a faster rate of return, and housing for the 55+ crowd fits the bill because they have more money.
On average, people have about as much money as they'll ever have around retirement age. Many will have a house or condo to sell. They also might have inherited money from their parents by then. And without a job tying them down, they have more options on where they can move to. So, that's a really good time to sell them a house.
Because lots of old people have money.