Older Renters are Increasingly Living Alone
A growing share of older renters is living alone, with small asset properties experiencing robust gains from this demand segment.
Living Arrangements of Boomer and Senior Renters
Among major demographic shifts, the oncoming wave of retiring Baby Boomers will materially impact the multifamily landscape.
Life expectancies have risen and elderly individuals are increasingly amenable to renting. This ‘aging in place’ trend will require unit and property-level upgrades for 24-hour support, especially for seniors living alone.
As shown below, nearly 40% of all Boomer-Senior renters lived alone by the end of 2017. This is compared to only 20% for the overall renter population. Conversely, their share in married-couple households was similar across age cohorts.¹
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Living arrangements differed significantly across rental asset types. The share of the Boomer-Senior renters living alone increased from single-family rentals (23%) to multifamily properties, as depicted below.
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A staggering 61% share of older renters in highly amenitized, large asset multifamily lived by themselves. In less-amenitized, small apartment buildings, which also tend to be more affordable, an equally impressive 50% share of older renters lived alone.
Alternately, older renters living in married-couple households comprised higher shares in single-family rentals, at 44%, compared to 24% to 26% across multifamily buildings.
Older Adults Living Alone Increase in Small Multifamily
Living alone is not only the dominant mode of rental arrangement for older renters; it is also the fastest-growing demand segment across all asset types for this age cohort.
As presented below, the share of older renters living alone increased in small apartment properties by 139 basis points (bps) between 2015 and 2017. For large buildings, the change was 114 bps. All other living arrangement types either declined or stayed flat across rental asset types.
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According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) America’s Older Adults, 2018 report, over the next 10 years, the swelling ranks of Baby Boomers and Seniors are expected to result in 11 million additional households headed by individuals 65 years and over, many of whom will call rental accommodations their home.
For multifamily stakeholders, a striking aspect of this trend is the growing preference among older renters for smaller cities away from large urban centers, as noted in the JCHS report, an issue further examined in upcoming blogs.
1 All data is sourced from the American Community Survey (ACS), unless otherwise stated. ACS statistics are sample-based estimates of the compositional profile of the total population in the given year of data collection, and include a margin of error.