Posts Tagged ‘snow birds’
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
In the United States, where they have a quaint habit of collecting reliable data that sheds light on matters of interest and importance to their society (unlike Canada, where we consider this practice outrageously intrusive), data from the 2009 American Housing Survey have just been released.
For the 65+ group, the most common reason for moving was to be closer to work/school/other. The questions (and answers) apply to all age groups, which is why “closer to family” doesn’t appear as a specific choice. It is very likely though that closer to family is the primary motivator for this group.
No surprise there. But the second most common reason, chosen by almost as many people as “closer to work/school/other” was “needed larger house or apartment”. Now that IS surprising.
On the unsurprising front again, only 7% of 55+ households reported living in an age-restricted community. Of course we have no idea what the comparable Canadian figure is, but it is probably lower for reasons I have discussed in earlier posts.
90% of US households of all ages live in unsecured (ie ungated) communities, but new construction is more likely to be in gated communities.
We will post again about the AHS.
Tags: 2011 Canadian Census, Age of entry, Aging, Aging in place, American Housing Survey, gated communities, Housing Development, Housing Market, Housing Options, Migration, Mobility, Seniors' Housing, snow birds
Posted in Future, News, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
As we have often commented in this blog, the US is light years away from Canada in terms of the quantity and quality of available research on the seniors’ housing and health care industry. The mission of the wonderful National Investment Center (NIC) is: “To advance the quality of seniors housing and care by facilitating informed investment decisions through best-in-class data, research, networking events and professional education” and they do a great job of that.
One of the many useful things they do is track occupancy data by quarter for five categories of housing and health care—freestanding IL, combined IL, freestanding AL, combined AL, and CCRC. (Remember that AL in the US is almost exclusively private pay).
A recent NIC Newsflash points out that occupancy rates for all five categories have declined more or less continuously since the first quarter of 2007, when they reached a cyclical peak of 92.3% (on average). First quarter 2010 data indicates an average occupancy rate of 88.0%.
Assisted living performed best over the period (decline of 2.7%) and freestanding IL the worst (decline of 6.2%). CCRCs ended up in the middle with a decline of 4.1%.
This is not remotely surprising. The US housing market has been hammered over the last few years. People more able to postpone a move into service-enriched housing (i.e. potential IL residents) have done exactly that.
Tags: Aging, Aging in place, Assisted Living, Housing Market, Housing Options, Independent Living, Occupancy Rates, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, snow birds, Supportive housing
Posted in Future, News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off
Thursday, May 6th, 2010
My last post discussed the surprising fact that Alberta attracts and retains more interprovincial migrants over the age of 65 than BC. Those migrating seniors are part of the 20% of the 65+ age group that moved between the last two censuses. Not all moved interprovincially of course—in fact, many more moved within the same province. To take BC as an example, for every 100 people over the age of 65 who moved between 2001 and 2006:
- 49 moved within the same city or town;
- 36 moved within BC;
- 10 moved from a different province;
- 5 moved from another country.
The proportions were almost exactly the same for younger BC seniors (55 to 64), which is interesting because that group contains many leading edge boomers. The expectation among many industry observers is that baby boomers will behave differently from older generations, but that expectation has yet to materialize in mobility patterns.
Generally speaking, the older people get the more likely they are to stay close to home. More people over the age of 75 move within the same city or town than other age groups, and fewer move between provinces. We might expect then that younger seniors would be more inclined than older seniors to move from province to province, but that’s not what happened, between 2001 and 2006.
One of the reasons for this is probably the snowbird phenomenon—people don’t move from province to province because they go away for six months every year. A far greater proportion of American seniors move from state to state: they’ve got all kinds of warm places to move to. Canadians have South Western British Columbia, milder than the rest of the country to be sure, but it’s not Arizona!
Tags: Aging, Migration, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, snow birds
Posted in Future, Senior Housing | Comments Off
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