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No
maintenance please
Retirees’ active lifestyles drive change in building
industry
Related
links:
- Expansions in retirement communities
around Virginia
- Directory of communities
with retirement living
by
Paula C. Squires
Virginia Business
August 2003
Jane
Anderson will miss her 18th-century garden. Husband
Duke hates to give up the handsome bar where friends
gathered for conversation. Yet these retirees decided
it was time to scale down from the 3,400-square-foot
dream home they built at Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg
a decade ago. Now in their 70s, the couple worried about
keeping up such a big place. So, they sold it and are
building a smaller home in a new, no-maintenance section
of Ford’s Colony.
While
moving at any age is difficult, the Andersons focus
on the positives: They’re keeping their neighborhood,
friends and activities. Plus, they’ll never have
to mow the grass. Ditto for raking leaves, cleaning
gutters, or shoveling snow. A monthly fee of $135 will
cover exterior house and yard maintenance, year-round.
Duke, 75, who had a pacemaker implanted in his heart
last year, looks forward to the freedom. And he’s
excited about building another new home. “The idea
of building something again keeps you young,” he
says.
The
no-maintenance lifestyle, desired by retirees, empty
nesters and even some working professionals, is so popular
that it’s driving change in the building industry.
These homes, built with brick, vinyl siding and other
durable materials, are becoming a large part of builder
portfolios. In fact, builders and developers say they
can hardly keep up with demand as the huge baby boomer
generation moves toward retirement and older adults
live longer. “It’s the wave of the future,
there’s no doubt about it,” says Charles Pysher,
director of marketing for Ford’s Colony. “Maintenance-free
is what customers are after. They don’t care if
it’s a stand-alone home, a condo or a villa.”
Fueling the trend are two factors: the sheer number
of aging people and today’s active retirees. “For
the next 20 years low maintenance is here to stay,”
says Leslie Marks, executive director of the National
Council on Seniors Housing for the National Association
of Home Builders. “We know that the growth of the
55 to 65 age group will grow about 72 percent. The age
group behind them, 45 to 54, will grow 5 percent. These
people are active, well educated, healthy and they want
to enjoy life.”
Escaping
the burden of maintenance — at least on the outside
— is one way retirees free up time for the important
things in life such as traveling, writing and visiting
children and friends. When lots went on sale this spring
in Nottingham, Ford’s Colony’s first no-maintenance
section, the sales staff sold 18 of 73 lots the first
weekend. Prices there start at $90,000 for a quarter
of an acre. By the time buyers put up a home, they can
expect at least a $300,000 price tag. That’s less
than many of the homes in the upscale community, located
minutes from the College of William and Mary and Williamsburg’s
historic village. Nottingham is the latest option in
the mixed-age, award-winning development, which offers
picturesque lakes, a country club, three golf courses,
swimming, tennis and walking trails. The no-maintenance
section will be set apart and gated, providing the sense
of security many retirees crave. It also offers a community
plot for gardening, an attractive feature for people
like Jane, who wants to continue her favorite outdoor
hobby.
Across
Virginia — indeed the country — the story’s
the same. Low or no-maintenance homes in mixed or age-restricted
communities are being snatched up. And while retiree
living may mean scaling down in size, many older buyers
are stepping up in style. They’re asking for two-car
garages, Florida rooms, first-floor master suites, his
and her closets and oversized tubs. In addition, the
55 and over crowd — whose children have flown the
nest — seek amenities to complement their new carefree
lifestyle. Many want a clubhouse where they can socialize
with peers and home designs that will age along with
them. Some builders are offering ground-level entrances,
wider halls and doorways and higher countertops —
measures that would accommodate a wheelchair should
mobility become impaired in later years.
For
more ideas on age-proofing retiree homes, builders can
visit a national demonstration project, the Lifewise
Home in Bowie, Md. Built in 2002 by the National Association
of Home Builders Research Center, it showcases designs
and products — non-slip tile floors, task lighting,
easy-to-open windows, levered faucets — that help
older adults live safely and independently. “One
of the more interesting trends is that we’re starting
to get architectural recognition for homes that promote
aging in place,” says Andy Kochera, a senior policy
advisor with the AARP Public Policy Institute in Washington.
The challenge for builders, adds Kochera, is to make
homes accessible without alienating healthy buyers who
aren’t ready yet to think about the need for grab
bars in the shower. “No one is going to tell their
client, ‘Well, you’re going to get older and
more frail, so you need this,’” says Kochera.
Developers
would rather tout the multi-million dollar clubhouse/recreation
centers that are the focal points of adult communities.
Slenker Land Corp. in Burke typically spends $3 million
to $4 million on a clubhouse that will serve a community
of 500 to 1,000 homes and another $30 million to $50
million on infrastructure for these resort-style communities.
The company got into the adult-housing market in 1995
when a Raleigh project mandated a certain number homes
for people 55 and over. The project did well, so company
President Bill Slenker began studying the demographics.
About 20 percent of Virginia’s population is 55
and older, according to the most recent census. In 2001,
homeownership nationwide for households headed by someone
age 50 and older was 80 percent. “A builder who
is not in this business just hasn’t done his homework,”
says Slenker.
Today,
the product represents 80 percent of his company’s
business. Currently, Slenker has 3,000 no-maintenance
units up or under construction in four states —
Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and North Carolina —
making it the 20th-largest developer of active-adult
housing in the U.S. One of the industry’s biggest
players, Del Webb Communities — with 13 developments
across the country — continues to build out its
first Virginia project, Falls Run in Fredericksburg.
Like
Dell Webb, Slenker’s niche is building age-restricted
communities for people 55 and older. It’s building
a new community in Loudoun County called Central Parke
at Lowes Island. Located in the Lowes Island golf course
community, the development will offer 56 villas and
125 condominiums. The one-level, 2,100-square-foot villas
sell in the mid to high $400,000 range, while starting
prices for condos with elevator service are in the high
$200,000s. The prices are higher than Slenker’s
average price tag of $250,000, because Central Parke
is a golf course community. Nevertheless, the company
sold 32 units the first weekend, and sales continue
to be strong. Low mortgage interest rates and cash accumulated
from the sale of principal homes put no-maintenance
homes easily within the reach of many retirees.
To keep residents busy and healthy, Slenker communities
offer indoor and outdoor pools, fitness equipment designed
for older adults and educational programs. “We
have professors, dietitians and investment advisors
who come in and give classes,” says Slenker. Residents
pick up mail at a central pavilion, which has a coffee
shop, where they can catch up on the latest gossip.
Slenker communities offer no-maintenance living for
yards and exteriors with monthly fees ranging from $150
to $200 a month. Typically, a community’s homeowner’s
association hires a contractor who is responsible for
the maintenance. Condo owners pay additional fees to
cover maintenance costs for an entire building and common
areas. Even in a retiree community, people are responsible
for their home’s interior, although some places
provide recommendations and numbers for repair services.
Living
in a 55-plus community may not be everyone’s idea
of retirement heaven, but Alta Mae Gibson says it has
given her a new lease on life. A year ago, she and her
husband sold their home of 32 years in Glen Allen outside
Richmond and moved down the road to CrossRidge, a new
400-unit adult community. For about $270,000 the Gibsons
purchased a low-maintenance, two-story, 2,700-square-foot
attached carriage house. It has a sprinkler and security
system, an open floor plan with a large kitchen, a downstairs
master suite and two upstairs bedrooms for guests. Alta
Mae, 69, is relieved that 72-year-old Robert has no
more yard chores. “I didn’t want him cutting
the grass twice a week and getting up on the roof to
clean gutters.” Now the couple spends their time
planning covered-dish socials and chatting with neighbors,
who gather nearly every evening in the couple’s
driveway. “The fellowship out here is unbelievable,”
gushes Alta Mae.
A
socially active lifestyle is part of the draw for communities
like CrossRidge, developed by Atack Properties and Eagle
Construction of Virginia. Activities Director Bernie
Deisler, a baby boomer himself, plans everything from
day trips to bridge and kickback Friday night parties
by the pool. “These people want to play and enjoy
the fruits of their labors,” he says. At CrossRidge,
monthly maintenance fee ranges from $110 to $170 —
depending on whether residents live in town homes, which
cost about $191,750 for 1,828 square feet — or
the larger, more expensive carriage homes. In addition,
residents pay $125 a quarter to the main homeowners’
association, which gives them access to the pool, clubhouse
and other amenities.
Adding
a section of low-maintenance homes in more traditional
planned residential communities has worked well for
some builders, including Boone Homes Inc. in Richmond.
Boone got into the market about four years ago while
building in Wyndham, a golf course community in Henrico
County. The all-brick villas there sold so well that
the company built even fancier villas in the $300,000
to $400,000 price range at Founders Bridge, a new golf
course community that straddles Chesterfield and Powhatan
counties. The low-maintenance villas — with monthly
maintenance fees of $165 — have nearly sold out.
“More people are retiring early,” notes company
CEO David Owen. “It’s probably about 30 percent
of our building now. We feel that it will grow to about
half of our business. It’s a demographic shifting.”
In
mixed-age communities, Owen might have spotted another
trend. At Wyndham he has one client who moved his family
into a new single family home and then talked his mother
into moving into a low-maintenance villa in another
part of the development. “Children want their parents
nearby. Now kids can ride their bikes over to see her,
and the family can go to the pool together. But the
mother still has the autonomy of having her own home.”
Sounds like a pretty good set up. And she won’t
be calling her son to cut her grass.
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