At Englewood Courtyard’s grand opening, Englewood’s Principal, Mark Perry highlighted a presentation he saw by one of Vancouver’s leading development realtors, Bob Rennie of Rennie Marketing Systems. The key point Mark took away from the meeting was that the Baby Boomer population is changing and consuming differently. There are two groups of Baby Boomers in BC:
- Group 1 are aged 49 to 67 and are likely to have a mortgage still on their homes
- Group 2 are aged 56 to 75 and have 113,000 single family clear title homes in BC
According to Rennie, both groups are looking to downsize and buy down to free up equity money to live on and to fund travelling and other lifestyle costs. Rennie stressed that developers (and investors) must change their business, as Group 2 will make up 33% of BC’s population in just 15 years!
In fact, BC’s entire population is aging significantly. During the same 15-year period, the amount of 55-74 year olds will increase by 23% and the amount of 65-74 year olds will increase a staggering 69%!
From a business point of view, the impact of this aging population is obvious: over the next 15 years, a sizeable percentage of BC’s population will be looking to sell their current homes and buy down so they can enjoy their retirement. This means that developers and investors would be wise to shift their strategies going forth, away from dense urban developments and towards suburban land.