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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (84332)	7/31/2007 11:16:50 AM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 110194

The rest of the country isn't necessarily the retirement capital of the US. A much higher percentage of the population is retirees in SW Fla than almost anywhere else. Boomers are both wealthy and poor, depends on which segment of the population you are looking at. About half of all people retiring will only have SS for income and have no significant assets. It's been this way for a few decades now. About half will opt for the earlier retirement age making their monthly payout significantly lower than if they waited until they reached the age for full benefits. Most of these people will have to rely on subsidised housing and services as they age, either subsidised by their families, the government or some charitable entity. The majority of those on the bottom are women. I don't know what the retirees on the bottom half do where you are, in my area they tend to get stacked in subsidized high rises that are exclusively senior citizens. They don't soak up two and three bedroom houses unless they've owned the house for many years and own it outright. Down in SW Florida there is an endless horizon of single story individual homes with 2-3 bedrooms. There are, of course, some cheaper low rise garden apartment type condos as well as trailer parks but they don't have the kind of high rise buildings that exist on the East coast of Florida. I made my comment because we were discussing buying single family homes for rental. The bulk of people in the rental market in SW Florida are either going to be retirees or recent immigrants. A retiree moving to Florida with significant assets would buy a house because houses are still very cheap (getting cheaper) in comparison to where ever that person came from. Florida has significant tax advantages to owning the house you live in because of the Homestead provision. Now someone might rent a house while they were deciding where to live or if they thought houses will get even cheaper but they'd be short term tenants. The difference is between renting your house to someone who can pay $1600/month or one whose maximum is $450 because they're living on $900/month in SS. Some of those people might be eligible for Section 8 subsidies but usually those go first to families with children. The rental market for houses here is very different. You get young professionals, families and groups of singles who rent because they aren't ready to buy a house. You are renting to people who have a prayer of higher incomes in their future. Plus, if they can't afford the rent they'll get roommates and split it. Retirees almost never explore that option.