Dive Brief:
- A recent National Association of Home Builders report focusing on baby boomer housing preferences found that the majority of boomers want the suburban, single-family lifestyle.
- Boomers also showed a preference for community features such as close proximity to retail space, a park and walking/jogging trails. The least desired features were tennis courts, high-density areas, mixed-use near commercial offices/buildings, golf courses, baseball/soccer fields and nearby daycare centers.
- The survey, which covered many other categories such as home size, environmental impacts and technology, also found many of the community features favored by boomers were also reflective of other cohort preferences as well. The two primary generational differences, though, were desire to be near daycare, which ranked high with millennials, and outdoor maintenance services, more popular with aging boomers.
Dive Insight:
Street design tradeoffs, often helpful in making land planning decisions, was another category on the NAHB survey, and the results revealed that boomer preferences fly in the face of the popular consensus among many street planning advocacy groups.
The NAHB said groups like the National Complete Streets Coalition are proponents of interconnected streets because of their efficient traffic flow, which implies that designs, like cul de sacs, which are meant to prevent through traffic should be limited. However, 78% of boomers prefer street designs with limited traffic flow, more than triple the 22% who prefer living on a street with continuous traffic.
The aging baby boomer generation is expected to greatly influence changes in home design in the coming years. A recent American Institute of Architects survey identified universal design and a healthy living environment as some of the trends to emerge over the next 10 years.
The surge in the boomer population, expected to double to 88.5 million by 2050, has expanded the business opportunities for developers who build senior communities, architects who design renovations, and home service providers who install grab bars and other safety features in homes.