Millennials aren’t the only segment of the population having a hard time finding affordable housing, Seniors are also having the same problem.
Due to inflation hitting record month-to-month increases, Baby Boomers are beginning to look for affordable places to call home in retirement, many are finding they cannot afford market-rate independent living, assisted living, or memory care.
They are finding affordable senior housing especially hard in low-density areas where they grew up, raised their families, and know just about everybody in the area.
Having worked and volunteered in small towns and cities under 30,000, they want to stay there. Most seniors that are downsizing don’t want to be forced to move in with their children and their families.
For country-born and raised seniors, there are very few if any affordable 55+ communities in their neck of the woods. They are either forced to move into areas of town reserved for Section 8 because the rents are affordable or give up a lot of necessities in order to afford senior living housing.
Developers that see big cities as the place to build affordable senior living rarely want to invest in building out a 40-60 unit building in smaller towns simply because they either didn’t know it was needed or they couldn’t justify the cost of such a small project in such a rural setting.
For modular home builders, this could be a real wake-up call to generate more sales, either by teaming up with a local monied investor and acting as their GC or doing it themselves by purchasing a small parcel of land with public utilities available and using modular construction to build out a well designed but affordable senior community of 20-30 homes.
Today, developers are moving into the Build to Rent with communities near cities but what would happen if they were to look at rural areas and small villages for Senior housing that can be rented? Gold Mine? Probably.
Builders and developers could work with current assisted living facilities to provide turnkey homes for them in rural areas.
Once you get away from either the West or East Coast regions and begin moving inland, there are many small areas that need affordable senior housing.
Nearly one-third of households age 65 or older spend at least 30% of their income on housing and more than half of that total pay over 50%.
Affordable senior housing is NOT low-income senior housing which is what HUD’s Section 202 addresses.
Find a way to give those average seniors in low-density areas a rent between $950 and $1,300 a month with no yard maintenance and the seniors will beat a path to your door.
Gary Fleisher is the Editor in Chief of Modular Home Source and Offsite Builder. Email at [email protected]
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