Trendspotting: Luxury Senior Housing Complexes Court Boomers

NewsWire: 12/9/21

• Luxury senior homes aimed at wealthy Boomers are springing up around the country. Along with high-end amenities, they also offer lots of opportunities for personal and cultural enrichment. (The New York Times)
• NH: A view of the Manhattan skyline. A private movie theater. An in-house Mediterranean restaurant and European-style café. No, this isn’t a luxury hotel. It’s a retirement home. 
• These kinds of high-end facilities are springing up nationwide, especially in super-cities like NYC. Monthly rent can cost between $8k and $20K. And initial membership fees can cost up to $50K. 
• These retirement homes are undoubtedly catering to Boomers' tastes. In place of bingo and shuffleboard, organized activities are intellectual and cultural, like Tai Chi and book clubs. Many are focused on self-improvement, like personal lessons in memoir writing and meditation. Some facilities even feature art galleries with rotating exhibitions. 
• But these apartments haven't yet attracted all that many tenants. The luxurious Watermark, which opened in October 2020, can hold 275 people. To date, it has signed on only 30 residents. Similarly, the posh Inspīr has 216 units but has only 60 residents. 
• All of these features seem perfect for the peer preferences of high-end Boomers. So what's the problem? Here are some possible obstacles.
• Covid-19: Affluent Boomers know full well that they are at high risk if they contract Covid-19. They also know that inflection risk rises in crowded urban settings, indoors, amidst hordes of jet-setting strangers. That's why such a large share of older people have moved out of these cities. In short, it's a bad time to market anything urban to seniors. (See “Seniors Push Up Demand for Single-Family Homes.”)
• Aversion to Institutional Life: Boomers have shown a growing aversion to anything resembling intuitional living, no matter how ritzy or high-end. A growing share wants to "age in place" in their own homes, close to their extended families. And those who move are opting more for college communities, small towns, or wilderness isolation, making new elder enclaves resemble rural hamlets more than condo mini-cities, Taos or Bozeman more than Sun City West or the Villages. (See "There's No Place Like Home.")
• Delayed Retirement: Many wealthy and educated Boomers are still working. And even if they aren't, they don't want to be seen as living a "retirement lifestyle."
• The best scenario for these apartments would be the rapid disappearance of Covid-19. But even then, I suspect these facilities will struggle to fill rooms.