Builder Study Reveals Habits of Buyers Over Age 55

Home shopping over age 55

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the Metlife Mature Market Institute (MMMI) teamed up recently to study what consumers over 55 are looking for when shopping for a home.

The data reveals that buyers aged 55 to 64 had similar preferences to those over ate 65, however, the younger of the two age brackets emphasized a desire for tech features and the older of the group preferred single story floor plans (neither of which are surprising).

MMMI Director of Research, John Migliaccio said, “very telling is that the younger group reported enthusiastically that they want services like home maintenance and repair as part of their next home purchase, along with services typically connected to older homeowners, such as housekeeping, onsite health care and transportation.”

Umm, a what shortage?

According to the NAHB press release, “Paul Emrath of NAHB pointed out that the share of households that will want lower maintenance housing is large and growing larger as baby boomers age. He cautioned that the current financial situation has led to sharply decreased construction of communities that serve the market. Without a chance in the availability of capital for development and construction, there could well be a shortage of such housing when it is most needed.”

Now, I don’t know about a housing shortage simply because new homes are not being built… it stands to reason that between the historic rise in foreclosures and even shadow inventories that threaten to increase the number of homes on the market, it is unlikely that there is a threat to “such housing.” What say you?

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Keywords: buyer habits, NAHB, new home construction

Topics: News