We Clearly Can’t Make The Baby Boomers Happy In San Francisco
November 19, 2009 – 10:50 am | by thefrontstepsThis from California Real Estate Magazine [with our comments thrown in]:
Baby boomers want suburban [not us], single-story homes [we challenge you to find on in San Francisco] loaded with amenities such as high-speed Internet [that's doable], larger medicine cabinets [start buying pharm stocks], non-slip floors [okay], lower kitchen cabinets [gonna have to ask the building inspector if that's okay in SF], and emergency call buttons [24 hour concierge now available at many SOMA condo towers!], according to “55+ Housing: Builders, Buyers, and Beyond“.
Boomers also rank the following five features as the most important: in-home washers and dryers [easy]; master bedrooms on the main level [hmmm...a bit tricky]; easy-to-use climate controls [kind of hard to turn the fog on and off]; storage space [ain't gonna happen]; and easy-to-open windows [original double-hung windows are SO easy to open...come on!]. A whopping 83 percent of respondents want high-speed Internet; 94 percent want energy-efficient homes [leaky Victorians ARE efficient! What are you talking about!?]; and 55 percent want ENERGY STAR-rated homes. However, few respondents said they would be willing to pay more for these energy-efficient enhancements. [No kidding...they want it all, but when it comes time to get out the checkbook, old T-Rex is in the house.]
Looks like San Francisco can pretty much rule out the baby boomers as a target market. Damn…
