Adding to the information from RAB on senior housing – it seems that buyers over 55 are the hottest segment of the housing market.  In fact, one builder says that “this is the housing segment that’s going to lead us out of recession”.  And as with everything else the Boomers have done, they’re going to do retirement on their own terms.  They’re not interested in the
sprawling retirement communities with multiple golf courses and clubhouses.  Instead, they’re looking for age-restricted properties in the suburbs centered around a fitness-oriented lifestyle.  They’re not interested in downsizing, either.  They have lots of stuff, and they want their big houses in retirement, too.

(Personally, I’ll be looking for a one-story, 2500+ square feet, in a nice neighborhood, preferably with a porch…!)

Hope this results in some good conversations with your realtors!
jc

Builders Hope to Lure Boomers and Seniors as Home Values Rebound
From RAB's "Radio Sales Today" 2/19/13
Seniors who have been itching to trade the old home place for some new digs may get the chance now that the housing market is recovering. 

At least that's what builders hope. 

They are ready to build a new generation of housing aimed at seniors and aging baby boomers -- not the huge retirement golf course developments of yesteryear, but smaller, age-restricted suburban subdivisions.  During the economic crash, many of these potential buyers put their plans on hold when their houses wouldn't sell or they lost equity.  But with housing values on the rebound, homebuilders are sharpening their marketing efforts aimed at buyers over 55.

"We think this is the housing segment that is going to lead us out of recession," Don Whyte, a Utah builder, said recently at the housing industry's annual meeting in Las Vegas.  "We are seeing the traffic from these buyers is up, and shoppers are coming around looking at houses again," he said.

The National Association of Home Builders is predicting an almost 25 percent increase in home starts this year for properties targeted at 55-plus buyers. And next year, construction for this market will jump almost a third.   "This is a growing share of the market, just in terms of the underlying demographics," said Paul Emrath, an economics researcher with the builders
association.  Currently, about 42 percent of U.S. households are made up of 55-plus residents. By 2020, that number is forecast to grow to almost 47 percent.

Equity returns
John Sheleimer, a housing researcher from Northern California, said there are 79 million U.S. baby boomers and almost 80 percent already own a home.   "We are the wealthiest consumer segment in the housing market," Sheleimer said. "We have money to buy homes if we can sell our home at what we think it is worth, and that is also improving.  We are starting to see the home equities come back," he said. "We are starting to see people feel they can sell their home and move equity to buy a
new home."

Home starts for 55-plus buyers should total about 150,000 units this year, the builders predict.  The recession froze sales of homes to seniors in many areas of the country, builders and economists say, and there is pent-up demand.   "We have had a delay of several years where boomers and seniors didn't move," said Bob Karen, a Maryland builder. "In our sales offices, we now see an absolute change in this consumer's behavior.  They are coming in with lots more optimism and not as depressed about selling the homes they have," Karen said.

Now that older buyers are thinking about moving again, builders are trying to figure out what type of housing they want. New research shows that most still want to live in the 'burbs, with few opting for central city locations.

Different priorities
But they are less interested in the huge "retirement" communities that were developed in past decades.  "The days of the mega master-planned community with four clubhouses and 27 golf courses are dead," said Sheleimer.   Instead, the 55-plus buyers are looking at smaller age-restricted subdivisions close to traditional housing. Most of those buyers also aren’t
interested in drastically downscaled housing, Sheleimer said. "Many 50-plus buyers do not want to downsize to 1,500-square-foot or 1,200-square-foot homes," he said. "We have lots of stuff."

 While aging buyers may not want golf courses, that doesn't mean they aren't interested in community amenities. Developers are building walking trails, fitness centers, swimming pools and clubhouses in most of the successful projects.

"The exterior amenities are just as important as the interior," said Andrew Wong of Pulte Homes, one of the country's largest builders of homes for 55-plus buyers. Wong said Pulte's homes aimed at boomers and seniors are as large as 3,000 square feet.  "These buyers might still be working, or they could be retired," he said.

 (Source: The Dallas Morning News, 01/31/13)

From this week’s RAB e-newsletter, an article that speaks to what we, as  public radio marketers, do.  Purpose marketing, or marketing your company not just by what it sells, but by what the company stands for – is perfect for public radio consumers.  (It’s also a perfect marketing tool for Millennials and Boomers – but that’s another topic!)  

Companies are setting themselves apart from the competition by making their values known.  If there are six companies selling sandwiches, but one company shares your ecological values – then you will buy your sandwiches there.  It’s the Halo Effect in marketing, and public radio stations can help companies achieve that goal – both through their own messaging and by association with public radio.

It’s an interesting read –
jc

Selling Products by Selling Shared Values

The purpose of marketing is to sell products, but there is also a new way, known as purpose, or purpose-based, marketing, to do it.  Purpose marketing, also called pro-social marketing, advertising for good and conscious capitalism, woos consumers with information about the values, behavior and beliefs of the companies that sell the products. The goal is to convince potential customers that the companies operate in a socially responsible manner -- marketing "meaningful brands," to borrow a term from the Havas Media division of Havas -- that goes beyond tactics like making charitable contributions or
selling a product or two in recyclable packaging. 

Purpose marketing is becoming popular on Madison Avenue because of the growing number of shoppers who say that what a company stands for makes a difference in what they do and do not buy.  Consumers are seeking "authentic emotional connections" with brands, said Mandy Levenberg, vice president and consumer strategist for cause and sustainable living at CEB Iconoculture, a consumer research and advisory firm that is part of the Corporate Executive Board Company, and the perception that certain "shared values" can increase loyalty. 

Such consumers, frequently referred to as socially conscious shoppers, are assiduous in their research of corporate policies. That means a company doing something deemed at odds with its purpose-based mission statement or high-minded
advertising campaign runs the risk of eliciting disappointment -- or even a sense of betrayal -- among socially conscious shoppers who consider themselves misled.

Thus, a company that pursues purpose marketing must communicate what its "core values" actually are, said Michael Simon senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the Needham, Mass., office of the Panera Bread Company  restaurant chain.   For instance, Panera is "a place to get great soup, salads, sandwiches, but we stand for so much more," he added, citing policies that include donating unsold baked goods, starting the Panera Bread Foundation, working with organizations like Feeding America and opening donation-based community restaurants under the Panera Cares banner.  "We talk about our values internally, but we've been reticent to leverage them," Mr. Simon said. That changed as a result of research that showed that communicating those attributes and actions could be "more compelling to our customers" than conventional pitches about meal deals or how "my sandwich is better than the guy across the street's."

So Panera and its new creative agency, Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago, are introducing a campaign, with a budget estimated at $70 million, that bears the slogan: "Live consciously. Eat deliciously."  The campaign will include television and radio commercials; digital, print and outdoor ads; and a significant presence on social media like Facebook and Twitter. The estimated 13 million customers who belong to the My Panera program will got a preview last Thursday. (The campaign was formally introduced on Monday.)

The effort is intended to convey that "as a successful business, the people at Panera believe it's important to participate in the community beyond pure business," said Marshall Ross, Cramer-Krasselt's executive vice president and chief creative officer.  "Of course, Panera's not the only people to care about these things, deliver these things," he added, but "when people who like the company for the food hear about the kind of company it is, it changes how they feel; they like it even more, for more emotional, more potent, more loyalty-driving reasons."   Mr. Ross acknowledged that purpose marketing "really does need to reflect real sincerity, without making people cynical."    "Sometimes an ad agency's job is to conjure the story and express it in a fascinating way," he said. "This time, our job was to shut up and listen to the real story."

 A television commercial that will help introduce the campaign starts with a narrator who says: "When Panera began, we decided to get up every day and bake fresh bread from fresh dough in every bakery cafe. That decision made us wonder,  what else could we do the right way?" The narrator goes on to ask: "Could we make food that lives up to our bread? And could it be food you can trust, with ingredients like antibiotic-free chicken?"  The commercial continues in a circular style, underlined by a Rube Goldberg machine that mimics the daily routine at a Panera restaurant. "Could we start all this with a humble loaf of bread?" the narrator concludes. "We already have, and every morning we start again."

For Bumble Bee seafood, Bumble Bee Foods is playing down traditional ads focused on products in favor of purpose-based efforts under a rubric, "BeeWell for Life," meant to emphasize health and nutrition. Those efforts involve blogs, e-books, Facebook and a Web site.  "We're figuring out as a company, as people, how we can effect change," said David F. Melbourne Jr., senior vice president for marketing and corporate social responsibility at Bumble Bee Foods in San Diego. "Rather than pushing out brand messaging, we're engaging consumers in a more meaningful way."   In pursuing purpose marketing, initiatives ought to "incorporate realistic goals," he added, to keep the campaigns from seeming too ethereal.

Bumble Bee Foods is primarily working with two agencies, Mr. Melbourne said, Geary Interactive in San Diego and Fleishman-Hillard, part of the Omnicom Group. Spending for the "BeeWell for Life" efforts is estimated at $5 million.

Other brands known for purpose marketing include Kashi, sold by Kellogg, and Whole Foods Market. A newcomer to the trend, Union Bank, is introducing a campaign by Eleven in San Francisco that carries the theme "Doing right, it's just good business." It features Edward James Olmos and Maya Angelou. Ms. Angelou? As in, "I Know Why the Caged Bank Sings?"

 (Source: The New York Times, 02/13/13)

From RAB’s daily e-newsletter – another underwriting suggestion!  Financial groups traditionally do well for public broadcasting stations, and with mortgage firms beefing up their staffing, it stands to reason they will also want to get the word out about their services to qualified buyers.  NPR listeners are in the market to buy homes.  Aging Boomers are downsizing
– or moving to one story homes.  They’re looking at second homes for eventual retirement.  Xers and Millennials are buying first homes – or moving up to a larger family home.

As the article mentions, this also puts a demand on related items, such as landscaping, pools/spas, outdoor furniture/kitchens, remodeling/decorating, home furniture and more.

Lots of good potential for spring, which is when many of these categories do their largest marketing push!
 
Mortgage Firms Betting on Continued Recovery 
Mortgage companies are betting that the nascent housing recovery of 2012 has legs by beefing up their staffs to accommodate the continued expansion in lending, sales and construction that many economists forecast this year. 
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage and other lenders are responding to increasing home  sales and values, and to the Federal Reserve's commitment to keep borrowing rates near historic lows until the unemployment rate improves. That combination
of factors typically spurs both home sales and refinancing activity.

"It should be a very good year for housing," said James Chessen, chief economist of the American Bankers Association. "With house prices rising, it means that there will be more (homeowners) refinancing at low rates because the equity in their house is improving. It also means more people are interested in selling their house to buy larger ones."

Daniel Vessely, president of Iowa Bankers Mortgage Corp., said: "The Fed's commitment to keeping interest rates low has given people in the mortgage industry a little more confidence, because everyone agrees that we won't see the unemployment rate coming down anytime soon."  The U.S. unemployment rate was 7.9 percent in January, versus 8.3 percent a year earlier.

Anika Khan, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC, said there's no doubt that home sales, construction and prices have hit bottom and are in recovery mode. The West Des Moines-based bank reported that its mortgage originations rose 4 percent to $125 billion during the fourth quarter.   "It makes sense," Khan said of the mortgage industry hiring spree.
"Inventories are very low, and that's the impetus for builders to get out there and ramp up activity. We're seeing that in every region of the country."

Wells Fargo's housing forecast calls for a 27.7 percent increase this year in housing starts -- a measure of new home construction -- from the 775,000 units begun in 2012. That means more work for idled carpenters and electricians, and an increase in demand for related products, such as barbecue grills, refrigerators and living room furniture.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, which handles about 30 percent of all U.S. mortgages, is adding staff and facilities across the nation. It's proposing to build a structure at its West Des Moines campus to accommodate 1,800 additional workers. It also announced plans in January to add more than 900 workers in Arizona, 100 in Georgia, and 90 in Alabama. The home mortgage division expanded its headcount by 18 percent to 17,945 full-time employees during the 12-month period ended July 1, according to Fitch Ratings.  The largest bank in the U.S. by market value increased its staff in Chicago by 10 percent last year to more than 800 workers, and has explored development of a four-block area of downtown Minneapolis.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage is one of the nation's top mortgage servicers, which accept and record mortgage payments, pay taxes and insurance, and handle the foreclosure process. As of Aug. 30, 2012, it was servicing 9.5 million loans with a combined value of $1.66 trillion, according to Fitch Ratings.

"As demand increases and decreases, we respond," said Wells Fargo Home Mortgage spokeswoman Vickee Adams.

 (Source: USA Today, 02/12/13)