Housing for the 55+ Market:

• Most homeowners age 55+, like their parents, are choosing to “age in place,” but a large and growing number—more than 1.2 million households—are choosing to move to communities designed to meet their needs.

• The main reasons for moving to a 55+ owner-occupied community were family or personal reasons, financial or employment reasons, and the desire to have a higher quality home. In multi-family communities, family was the number one reason, but reducing costs and increasing quality were also top priorities.

• Within the community, design and looks were most important to 55+ single-family home buyers, while closeness to family and friends was a higher priority in age-restricted rental and multi-family communities.

• Home and community location relative to work location are important for a growing number of 55+ households.

• Active adult communities are attracting more buyers who are age 60 and under.

• The share of home buyers in age-qualified communities with some college education or more increased from 50% in 2001 to 73% in 2007.

• The share of minorities has trended upward in age-qualified and other 55+ owner-occupied communities, and is likely to continue. The 55+ housing market is likely to become more racially and ethnically diverse.

The information in this report includes the 2007 American Housing Survey (AHS), the most recent release of this ongoing data collection, and observed trends in the AHS between 2001 and 2007. The AHS is designed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau to capture a relatively large amount of information about the physical characteristics of the units in which Americans live.

Characteristics are tabulated by the age of the occupants, structure type, and community type. Based on the information avail­able, three types of 55+ communities can be de­fined: age-qualified active adult communities, other non-age-qualified 55+ owner-occupied communities (those that are not explicitly age-restricted but nevertheless are occupied by adults age 55 +), and age-restricted rental communities.