Summer 2000, Vol 25, No 2

Abstract: Retirement mobility has become a more interesting topic to real estate consultants as baby boomers approach early retirement in the next decade. The baby boom at mid-life, however, is at the low ebb in the age mobility profile. They will begin affecting the retirement housing market after 2010. Pre-baby boom retirement mobility is a more pressing issue. Because of falling fertility rates during the 1930s and early 1940s, there will be a very slow growth of early retirees during the next 15 years, the calm before the storm of baby boom retirement. This slow down is often overlooked in the anticipation for the high growth years after 2010. Furthermore, it is useful to be reminded of the diversity in the baby boom generation because of the tendency to talk about it as though it is somehow unified in its tastes, values, and resources. Economic and technological development over the next 10 or 15 years may make projecting market demand more hazardous than we would like to admit when basing our expectations only on population shifts.