If the national real estate market behaved as Coldwell Banker brokers say their baby boomer clients do, a recovery would be in full force.

According to a survey of 1,333 agents conducted by the national brokerage and released today, 87 percent of Coldwell Banker agents reported having at least one baby boomer client who owns or is looking to own a second investment property. Twenty-two percent of respondents said at least half of their clients in the demographic own or covet such a property.

“Our survey clearly indicates that those boomers who are financially secure are actively seeking to buy their retirement home, or a second home, and they are taking advantage of the opportunities and value available in today’s market,” said Coldwell Banker CEO Jim Gillespie. – Adam Fusfeld
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About a third of baby boomers plan to move away from their current homes after retirement, according to Del Webb, a national active adult community developer. Of those who plan to move away from home, more than half plan to move out of state — with mainstays like Florida, Arizona and the Carolinas ranking high on the list of desired locales — while 25 percent plan to move to a different city within the same state. Most respondents, from a pool of around 2,500, about 70 percent, said accessibility to recreation and culture were important to them, while just 44 percent said they’d move to be closer to their grandchildren. TRD

“The old ‘normal’ will not return,” said John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute and author of a new research paper, “Housing in America: The Next Decade.” According to McIlwain’s, research, the post-recession U.S. housing market will look strikingly different, influenced largely by shifting demographics and consumer behavior. Americans are beginning to abandon the notion that homeownership is the quintessential “American dream,” he said, as evidenced by the growing number of borrowers who are walking away from their mortgages. He predicted that the future will bring a regained popularity in renting, particularly from Generation Y, and a renewed view of homes as shelters, not investments. Baby-boomers, with their home values depreciated and their retirement funds diminished, will show less interest in second homes and later, in traditional retirement communities. “Over time, a new mode of metropolitan development will emerge, presenting opportunities and stiff challenges. Those who fail to understand these new trends will find themselves building what is no longer in demand,” McIlwain said. TRD

Jessica Cohen of Prudential Douglas Elliman

From the January issue: When Core’s Kirk Rundhaug started marketing 32 Clinton Street, a four-unit boutique condo in a far-flung corner of the Lower East Side, he was somewhat surprised at who showed up at his open houses. In addition to the young hipsters generally associated with the edgy neighborhood, Rundhaug fielded inquiries from empty nesters from the suburbs of New Jersey and Connecticut. “They were Lower East Side people when they lived in New York,” he said of one 60-something Westchester couple who are eyeing a two-bedroom unit. “They want to come back.” Manhattan’s population of people aged 65 and older is expected to surge nearly 60 percent by 2030 as the baby boom generation ages. And while boomers had largely disappeared from the city’s real estate market in the wake of the financial crisis, brokers say this all-important demographic is now becoming active again. With prices no longer in free fall, many of the city’s boomers are now putting their sprawling apartments and townhouses on the market as they look to downsize to one- and two-bedroom homes. Meanwhile, suburban empty nesters are also reentering the market with an eye toward eventually retiring in the city, exchanging large, labor-intensive houses for apartments rich in services. [more]

Baby boomers are increasingly showing interest in the youthful enclave that is — or was — Williamsburg, Brooklyn, brokers and residents say. While NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy hasn’t yet seen a measurable shift in the area’s age distribution, Halstead Property’s Brooklyn executive sales director Roberta Benzilio has noticed a rising number of older prospective buyers showing up at Willliamsburg’s open houses over the past year, she said. Shop owners have also noticed a shift. “We definitely have a crew of older regulars,” Mark Firth, co-owner of café Marlow & Sons, told New York Magazine. “When we first opened, it was mostly under 30.”
[NY Mag]