The baby boomers have been referenced as the reason for investors to enter the seniors housing market for more than a decade, even though we are still several years away from the front end of them aging into the vast majority of seniors housing communities. But there is no guarantee that boomers will move into seniors housing, especially if new tech can better solve for health care, activities of daily living, property maintenance and socialization in the home, not to mention economic factors that may prevent seniors from selling their homes or may impact their savings and investment accounts to render seniors housing services unaffordable to them. Beyond all that, what if the current seniors housing product simply does not appeal to boomers? What worked for the Greatest and Silent generations may not work 10 years from now. That’s why it is important to understand what boomers, and every kind of group of boomers, value the most as they approach the next stage of their lives.
So it was great to see that ASHA released the results of a survey conducted with ProMatura Group detailing the senior living priorities of this generation. Around 80% of the respondents were boomers, but only 17% of the respondents were 80 and over, so seniors housing providers have a little time to adjust to the preferences determined by the survey, which can be accessed on ASHA’s bookstore linked here. Active adult seems to be meeting the most pressing needs of the respondents, from essential amenities and services to preferred residence type. But the majority of the respondents are in active adult’s desired age bracket and are generally considered too young for assisted living and even independent living. Also, many of those younger boomers’ “wants” could be different from their “needs” in the future. And “wants” and “needs” may not matter much if most can’t even afford the product.
