New House Construction for Seniors Drop
New house construction for Americans aged 55 and above has recently dropped by 50 percent. This data was released by the National Association of Home Builders on Tuesday, adding that only 126,000 new houses are set for construction this year.
This was half of the 249,000 houses last year. Next year, however, house construction for seniors is expected to increase by around 50,000 new houses. This data shows that the home construction industry is really ailing, since there are a lot of people that are already approaching retirement.
As the country suffers through an economic recession, home builders in the whole country decreased construction. Reasons for this include limited funds and a need to cut back on costs due to very little demand for new houses.
According to David Crowe, chief economist of the NAHB, 2010 expects a rebound from the current situation as the whole construction and housing industry recovers from the situation. Lower prices and even lower interest rates are expected this coming year.
There are currently around 75 million baby boomers that are already approaching retirement, or are already retired. With this, their segment is expected to comprise a large share in the housing market in the coming years. In 2007, around one fifth of all people who bought homes were 55 years old and above. Through the years, the number keeps on increasing, until the economic recession happened.
In fact, other data shows that baby boomers are still aiming to be able to work later in their lives, to cope with the difficult time. According to Elinor Ginzler, senior vice president of AARP for livable communities, the economic situation is causing all these changes on how people are actually living their lives. A lot of people do not opt for retirement, and instead are staying in their offices.
Ginzler further adds that the AARP survey that was recently conducted shows that around 9 out of 10 senior citizens living in the United States would actually opt to stay in their house that they are currently living in right now, rather than getting a new house. This choice has been known as “aging in place”, and is in fact gaining popularity, while as a result ails the construction industry. The data was actually based on the statistics on the Census 2007 American Housing Survey.
