Frey says upcoming retirees "may not run with the herd," but many will still move to Florida

Published: Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 9:37 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, December 17, 2011 at 9:37 p.m.

"We're extremely lucky," Carole Chorba said. "We put away for a rainy day and here we are."

But are the Chorbas a sign that the recession's chilling effect on retirement has eased this year in Southwest Florida, and the long-awaited migration of baby boomers has begun? Or are they an exception to a major trend that will see more Americans aging in their home communities ? either by preference or because of health or economic constraints?

The answer to both questions is yes, say the people who track U.S. census data.

In 2010, more Americans were 65 and older than ever before, making up 13 percent of the total population. The 65-and-over group is now the largest in both size and percentage of the U.S. population, compared with any previous census, the federal government reported last month.

Florida still leads the nation in concentration of residents 65 and older, but that share of the population has gently dropped in the last two decades, from 18.5 percent in 1990, to 17.6 percent in 2000 and 17.3 percent in 2010.

And during that last 10-year period, the rest of the country has begun to look grayer, especially in the West and Great Plains. In 2010, Sumter County ? home of the Villages retirement community ? was the only Florida county to rank in the top five for growth in the 65-and-older population. Three of the others were in Colorado and one was in Alaska.

Three Florida counties ? Sumter, Charlotte and Highlands ? did make the top five for their share of residents 65 and older. But Sarasota County ranked ninth, falling from fifth in 2000, said Carrie Werner, a statistician in the Census Bureau's Age and Special Populations Branch.

Much of the slippage in Florida's share of older residents can be linked to the economic downturn and housing crisis. Census Bureau projections had predicted a 17.8 percent share for Florida in 2010, anticipating a wave of early retirees that did not materialize.

The projection for 2030 is 27.1 percent, with the number of 65-and-older state residents more than doubling in 20 years.

The last decade saw people 65 and over become the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, largely thanks to the leading edge of the baby boom and greater longevity among men. And even though a smaller share of them is expected to retire in Southwest Florida ? or even to retire at all ? the baby boom generation is so huge that those who do come will change the landscape here, said William Frey, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution and professor of population studies at the University of Michigan.

"Florida will continue to be a magnet for retirees. Even if they're spreading out to other places, there's still going to be a significant number," Frey said. Baby boomers, in contrast to their parents, "may not run with the herd as much," Frey acknowledged. "But it's such a big herd."

Denial to acceptance

The recession's effect on stock portfolios and housing prices forced many would-be Florida retirees to delay moving, said Pat Neal, president of the Lakewood Ranch development company, Neal Communities. The average age of his customers, he said, has gone from 59 to 63.

"People postponed everything," Neal said. "It's now six years later and the biological clock has continued to tick. You know how it goes: denial, acceptance, resignation. People are resigned to the fact that their home in Cincinnati will never have the value it did in 2005."

Carole Chorba, 66, said a "really bad winter" in Michigan convinced her husband, 64, to leave his longtime job with the Ford Motor Co. They had family in Sarasota and found a home in the Oaks Golf and Country Club.

"He just came home and said, 'I can't take any more cold days,'" she said. She figured it might take a year or even two to sell their house, but it was gone in a week.

"My husband watches HGTV all the time," she said. "We hired a stager, and did a lot of little things to make it attractive."

Sarasota Realtor Candy Swick, who sold the Chorbas their house, is among those who believe that in 2011, the tap turned back on for Sarasota's retirement housing market. Her firm's business doubled this year, she said, and 80 percent of her own 165 sales this year were to retirees. "Some of them are still looking at the sale of their property up north," she said. "But what I see is more advance planning. Which is really interesting, because it means the younger people are planning on retiring here."

If Swick is right, Southwest Florida will see more people like Kari Lindsey, 51, who oversees 70 surgery centers for a health care company in Nashville. She and her husband bought a condo on Lido Key in March, and she has visited 10 times since then.

"We probably won't retire for nine or 10 more years," Lindsey said. "But I reached a place in my career where I could afford to start planning for retirement. We looked for maybe three years, but always kept going back to Sarasota. When I want something, I figure out a way to make it happen."

What boomers want

More Florida retirees in the next two decades will look like Lindsey ? healthy, financially comfortable and in a position to control their fates ? said Larry Polivka, director of the Claude Pepper Center on aging at Florida State University. High medical bills or lack of pensions and savings, he said, will keep others at home.

"Because of the growing threats to retirement security in America, you will see fewer people in the boomer generation making what we call 'amenity moves,'" he said. "To some extent that's been happening all along, for decades; the relative retirement asset wealth in Florida is higher than in the nation. But this will be more the case in the future."

Polivka said a higher net worth among incoming retirees will lessen the state's burden of providing long-term medical care and other services. "But it may be more than compensated for by the increase in lower-income Floridians who age in place here," he said.

He added that even a slight dip in the growth rate for older Floridians should be a cause for concern.

"I think that Florida has historically benefited enormously from its retiree population," Polivka said. "Other states have been siphoning them off for the last 10 to 20 years, and that has cost us."

Florida can best defend its market share in retirement housing by paying attention to boomers' desires for conveniences and support systems that their parents lack, said John Migliaccio, director of research at the Metlife Mature Market Institute. Among these are help with transportation, home maintenance and personal care.

"The lessons that boomers are learning from taking care of their parents are going to be incorporated in their own plans as they get older," he predicted. "For Florida builders, this means they really have to start going beyond the granite countertops, and start thinking about communities."

Source: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111217/ARTICLE/111219614/-1/news?Title=Next-wave-of-retirees-healthy-active-and-well-off

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