Tales from the Techside

I think I have been hearing about this moment for almost 20 years now. “What will happen when the baby boomer generation retires?” The question was generally asked within the broader context of social security reform. Today the first baby boomer applied for social security. 60 million more boomers stand behind her approaching retirement. The puzzle of how to reform social security to adapt to the retirement of this generational cohort persists.

Of course, there are even more curious and perhaps more significant puzzles. Broader ramifications that we cannot fathom yet. Certainly this will have an impact on real estate. Exactly what that impact will be remains unclear. Certainly it is not a bad time to dust off that SRES designation and take a hard look at the demographics. There is a reason why there are so many REALTORS® in Arizona.

I am personally curious about a question that you may not have thought of. Namely, what are these people going to do with their time online?
Now I know what you might be thinking - this is not exactly the www generation that we are talking about. Yes they have adapted to and learned to even embrace the www phenomenon (most particularly perhaps as an investment vehicle). But are they really going to spend a significant portion of their retirement years online?

I say yes. I have spent the past few weeks in the pleasure of my fathers company at my home. My father is technophobe, but in the past two weeks I believe I have observed him online nearly as much as I am. Granted he is a ‘civic,’ or a part of the ‘greatest generation’ as Tom Brokaw coined it. That, however, is another part of the equation; we are aging better. All of this combines to tell me that a massive demographic is about to find themselves with much more time on their hands. I am willing to bet that increasingly those hands will be spending time clicking online.

Clicking on what? That remains to be seen. I certainly have some ideas. The retirement services and financial planning industries have done a phenomenal job (and spent a tremendous amount of money) in preparing for this event. There are some lessons to be learned from them and others in preparing for the second childhood of this enormous and influential segment of our population.

Take a hard look at your business model as it relates to this generation. Understand that in the next 18 years (the baby boom was from 1946-1964) you may be helping a lot of people sell their primary residence to move to their retirement dream locale. Becoming expert in those areas, and making that apparent in your online presence, is a win win in my opinion.

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