Anne and Bernard Skul, who have homes in Glen Ellyn and Scottsdale, are part of the “lock-and-leave” retirement crowd. When crisp autumn days turn frigid in the Midwest, they close their four-bedroom home and head for sunshine.
And, when Phoenix and the rest of the neighboring vast Arizona valley start registering a stream of 100-degree days–this year, the first hit on April 25–the couple bids adios to their two-bedroom condo, step into their snazzy silver convertible and head for green grass in suburban Chicago.
The Skuls and myriad other dual homeowners across the country who lock-and-leave as they please are a slice of the exploding “active adult” market that is planning retirement living or already enjoying it.
The options for that market–be it 45 or 55 and up–are greater than ever, among them: Sell and move to resort-type age-restricted communities nearby or in the Sun Belt, stay-in-place and remodel, downsize, buy a second home.
However, making that destination decision–be it wrenching or eagerly anticipated–entails a lot of planning and emotional energy.
“It’s not as easy to leave as some people think,” said Anne Skul, referring to seniors’ fabled retirement desire to sell, head for warm weather and loaf happily ever after.
Seven or eight years ago, she and her husband, Bernard, just assumed they’d do just that some day, simply sell and move to Arizona. The Skuls and their daughters had become familiar with the Phoenix area through frequent visits with Anne’s mother, who’d retired to Sun City.
After a while, buying in that area after retirement became a given, just as settling in Arizona was considered a natural for their two eldest daughters, Beth DeRaad and Amy Skeptaris. Eventually the daughters started their families there.
“But, when the time comes, you don’t leave as easily as you think you can,” said Anne. “Bernie had his golf groups, (daughter) Lisa was living in Chicago. The neighbors have lived around us for as long as we’ve been here. And, when we’d get back from a trip, we always liked returning to a bigger home and greenery.”
To this day, they all still refer to Glen Ellyn as “home.”
The couple has tight ties to suburban Chicago.
Anne Skul taught special speech education and elementary grades in Glen Ellyn for 35 years. Bernard Skul, forward/center for DePaul’s Ray Meyer-coached basketball team in the ’50s, served for 20 years as athletic director of Proviso West High School. Both retired about five years ago.
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They have family and friends nearby. Their youngest daughter, Lisa Rydicki, lives in Bolingbrook and expects her first child, their fourth grandchild, this fall.
The hardest things to give up permanently, according to the Skuls, are family, friends, and “the house you’ve owned for 30 years, the place you raised your family.”
In their case, the decision was practically made for them. When their favorite rental condo in a Scottsdale gated non-age-restricted community of 160 units called the Bay Club went on the market, “we knew it and liked it so well, we bought it over the phone,” according to Bernard. They determined to keep the homestead as well.
When they bought in Scottsdale, the Skuls entered a market that once was called senior housing and applied to those over 65 who were heading toward retirement or nursing homes or huge Del Webb-type communities in the Sun Belt.
These days, when few acknowledge their seniority, as it were, men and women from 45 and up are considered “active adults,” the au courant term for practically anyone starting just beyond Gen X and including everybody alive and still kicking. That’s a lot of people.
Speakers at a recent senior housing symposium held in Phoenix and sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders said the market for later-life residences is the fastest-growing portion of the housing industry.
Of the nation’s total population, 78 million are Baby Boomers. The first wave of Boomers, all 3.2 million of them, is turning 55 during 2001.
Though the conference was themed “Building for Boomers and Beyond,” speakers and participants eagerly explored various targeted age groups, new locations and age-restricted, resort-style developments along with alternative types of housing.
Keynote speaker Barbara Caplan was greeted with enthusiastic applause, for example, when she opened with a call for a new vocabulary.
“With New York Life’s actuary tables being revised to move their life expectancy level up to the 110s,” she said, ” the word `seniors’ no longer applies.”
Also treating semantics lightly was Ava Busby Carberry, a design panelist from California, who quipped, “I considered myself an active adult as soon as I turned 21.”
Caplan, known for her age-driven market research for Yankelovich Partners Inc., called the substitute term, 55-plus, “too loosey-goosey.”
She prefers Matures for those born between 1909 and 1945 and describes this group of 68 million as upwardly mobile and generally conformists. But the young end of the Matures “thinks more like Boomers than their own generational group,” and they’re just beginning to penetrate the active adult housing communities.
New definition of age
Boomers, born between 1946 and ’64, are “the ones who are redefining youth and individuality.”
Research shows that 67 percent of them want more novelty and change in their lives. Home is still the core of their American dream, the only place they can relax and unwind.
Just for the record, she claims the next wave of active adults, the Xs, born between ’65 and ’78, are “savvy, very into diversity,” and she shrugs off the Ys with their own expression: “Whatever.”
LeRoy Hanneman Jr., president and chief executive officer of Del Webb Corp., says his firm invented and is trademarking Zoomers to replace Boomers because “they have no limits.” He describes Zoomers as more mobile than their parents, self-absorbed and hard to market to.
“They won’t think of themselves as old for another 20 years,” Hanneman said
Trillions to spend
He said they’ll have $10.4 trillion to spend, inherited from their frugal parents, whom he dubs “Ikes”; born between 1930 and ’45, they are practical, pragmatic, conservative. Eighty percent of them are homeowners.
After they officially retire, these Zoomers want to start a new business (probably with some of their Moms’ and Pops’ trillions) and their long-term primary goal is to be free of dependents and debt.
Just where are these Ikes and Matures, Boomers, Zoomers, and plain old seniors living or going to live?
Many will head for active-adult communities in warm climates. This type of housing continues to flourish in the Arizona desert surrounding Phoenix, as a tour of three developments revealed.
Studded with palm trees, cactus, rock gardens and a rare mini-patch of grass, many homes look much the same as developments almost anywhere (including the two- and three-car garages dominating facades), except these are in neutral or pastel stucco with tile roofs.
Built on the largest scale of all is the Del Webb Sun City Grand in suburban Surprise, approved for 9,800 units (with a probable population of 17,600) on about 4,000 acres.
Pulte Home’s Springfield Lake is starting up in suburban Chandler; Verde Groves in Mesa was included to illustrate a community meant to appeal to those who prefer fewer neighbors (250 homes).
But the newer and more interesting aspect of age-targeted retirement communities is that they’re no longer synonymous only with hot climates but are expanding into unexpected territories.
Registered were builders from Maryland, New Jersey, New York and the New England states along with a surprising number from Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana.
Locally, more developers are planning retirement communities, previously associated primarily with Cambridge Homes and its Carillon communities and Del Webb Sun City Huntley.
(Next week’s House Hunter will explore some of these developments.)
As for the Skuls, they say they feel fortunate that they can experience that old cliche, the best of both worlds, and live in two perfect houses.
They are indeed age-qualified for a retirement community–suffice it to say they’ve both celebrated their 50-year graduation anniversaries from Joliet high schools (though the athletic and still fresh-faced Bernard was totally delighted a few weeks ago when he was “carded” at a local suburban golf course as he attempted to pay the seniors’ fee).
But a retirement community? They’ll probably think about that tomorrow.
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Diverse roles seen
What works for one segment of this country’s aging population may not work for others. Age and health, finances, choice of lifestyle and/or companionship play significant roles.
Studies by AARP show that 89 percent of Americans 45 and older want to stay in their homes and multigenerational neighborhoods. The Skuls, for example, love living among all ages in both locales, “shopping in stores and eating in restaurants where there are people of all ages.”
One of the Boomer conference panel moderators said he and his wife just love and can’t give up their 3,400 square foot house; their four children and five grandchildren live within 25 minutes’ drive, they’re surrounded by friends.
“And, besides,” he added, “we don’t know how to get rid of the junk we’ve accumulated over the years.”
Officially tagged “the aging-in-place,” but more commonly called the stay-puts, this group spans all ages.
Some stay-puts will remodel their current homes to accommodate advancing age; encouraging them will be a growing coalition of remodelers and specialists in home modifications for the elderly or disabled. .
Another industry segment expected to impact home construction are those architects and developers who promote universal design and transgenerational houses–generally newly constructed homes designed to serve and accommodate a family from the marriage vows or first child on through maturity and old age and even into the next generation.
Their aim is to create products, homes and environments that will be efficient, safe, comfortable and usable to all people without having to be adapted through the years and, as one architect put it, “a house that looks good, not odd, funny or institutional.”
Constantly expanding is the category of over-55, stay-where-you-are types that wants to remain close to family, friends and familiar territory but choose to start over in an age-restricted community within easy driving (or commuting) distance of the place they’re leaving–the home they’re selling.
Generally, they want a smaller (or larger) house that has everything their old house didn’t; that’s low-maintenance, has on-site recreational facilities and neighbors in the same age bracket. (One panelist made a point of saying she loved to have her children and their children come for a visit –“but then I want them all to go.”)
And, what do the active adults want in their new homes, wherever they may be?
Yankelovich’s Caplan says, “They want what will make life easy and reflect their individuality. Boomers’ favorite words are comfortable, cozy, casual.”
For Del Webb’s Hanneman, “Any new house has to be better than what they have now–or they won’t want it.”