NBN Online for the week of May 8, 2006

Financial Realities to Hit Retirement-Age Baby Boomers

For the developers of active adult communities, the 78 million baby boomers who are fast approaching their mature years are likely to provide some formidable challenges, according to speakers at last month’s “Building for Boomers & Beyond: 50+ Housing Symposium” in Phoenix. For a start, the vast majority of them aren’t planning on a traditional retirement, don’t want to move far from their existing home and don’t have the financial means to be able to live without a paycheck.

Baby boomers are responsible for half of all discretionary spending in the country today and have annual discretionary income of $750 billion, said LeRoy Hanneman, CEO of Element Homes and former president and CEO of Del Webb Corporation, “yet too many are unprepared financially for retirement.”

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Lumber Prices Provided by Random Lengths

Quality of Life Found to Rise With Residential Growth

A new study from researchers at NAHB challenges the assumption of local zoning officials that residential development is detrimental to the quality of life in their community.

Using two sources of data for their analysis, the NAHB researchers clearly showed that there is a positive correlation between growth and the quality of life.

“Many local decisions made by officials concerning growth and development” are based on the perception that additional growth will deteriorate the quality of life, the study says. “Elaborate public policy initiatives, such as impact fees, urban service boundaries and mandatory land conservation are designed and implemented in order to mitigate the ‘negative consequences of growth’ and to ‘preserve quality of life.’

The Race Is On for National Membership Day

 National Membership Day — the federation-wide membership drive — is set for Tuesday, May 23. This year the theme is, "Driven to Be the Best," and NAHB members and state and local associations are preparing for this win/win event.

Having the drive helps local associations revitalize and grow their memberships. It can also help them to energize their members, create excitement, build momentum and even enter into a few friendly cross-state, cross-country or member-to-member rivalries.

Nation's Building News Will Not Be Published May 15

Nation's Building News will not be published on May 15, the week following the spring NAHB Board of Directors meeting in Washington, D.C. Publication of NAHB's official online e-newspaper will return to its regular weekly schedule with the May 22 issue.