Parker Associates Blog

Over the past few years, many writers have confused urban development sprawl with population density – the lower the density, the greater the sprawl. Others have simply used sprawl to describe any type of urban development they personally find distasteful. The word has become a cliché for a wide variety of urban conditions without specific definition.
Webster’s Dictionary describes sprawl as “to spread or develop irregularly” — a definition that applies to a great many urban areas at any density. The linear blight caused by major city streets suffering from unregulated peripheral development, both old and new, is likely to be accepted by most observers as fitting the negative image of sprawl. On the other hand, a pleasantly wooded subdivision of well-maintained homes and lawns does not deserve the same designation just because of its low density. Yet, the latter often is classified by this negative term simply because it is part of a low-density suburb that generates traffic to employment, schools and shopping centers.
Few urban planners would argue with the public efficiency of servicing urban areas of high-density in comparison with suburban areas of low-density. And fewer still would argue with the private efficiency of living in a neighborhood sufficiently dense to support shops and other facilities within walking distance. And a significant segment of our society (recent estimates suggest about one-third) appear to prefer to live in these more efficient higher-density neighborhoods. But an even larger segment appear to prefer lower-density housing locations, despite the annoyance of higher utility costs and the inconvenience of longer travel distances to support facilities. And, of course, an unfortunate minority has very little choice in living environment because of limited resources (and we have both high-density city slums as well as low-density rural slums).
“These are choices open to a majority of Americans. Public planners and other officials are free to influence persons to select more efficient lifestyle locations. And they can also attempt to influence developers to build more dense neighborhoods and housing. But they are not charged with regulating such decisions except as specifically defined in public legislation (and minimum density is seldom included in legislation, only maximum density).
“Therefore, whereas the term sprawl is a negative term for “irregular” development, planners and politicians should refrain from using it generically to describe urban growth that is equated to lower density. Higher rather than lower density does not equate to good and bad. It does equate to more efficient services and walking distances, but the value of these elements is judgmental for most persons. Americans will select the types of living environments they prefer, regardless of definitional inconsistencies from advocates of higher density environments.
Land developers and home builders, like politicians, often claim to know what Americans want, and they proceed to try and guide public opinion by their interpretation. We will see many unfinished developments in Florida developed on that premise, which leave behind committed land that is not used for anything, but reserved for a use that will never occur. At present, we have excellent and economic means of finding out what people really want. We do not need to rely upon one man’s or one company’s intuition. In sum, we can only hope that future urban developers will conduct continuing consumer research on needs and preferences as an integral part of the planning process.

Excerpt from David F. Parker’s new novel, “Searching For Innovation,” that describes a progressive urban developer’s hunt throughout Florida for the optimum site to develop his concept for a state-of-the-art new community. The two-week helicopter tour highlights the inefficient historic land development errors that defy correction in many parts of Florida.

Revitalization for Aging Retirement Communities

Improvements in health care and personal hygiene continue to extend the active lives of growing numbers of Americans.  However, in many cases, no parallel attention has been addressed to the dwellings and communities that constitute their primary living environments.  Recently, Parker Associates has been requested to examine the environments of several mature retirement communities with the objective of revitalizing them for attraction to replacement retirees.  Some key findings and conclusions are summarized in this blog.

Background

Despite the continuing impact of the Great Recession, exacerbated by negative effects of the European banking crisis, home sales are slowly expanding throughout the United States.  Households of all age groups are searching for initial or replacement dwellings, and a growing number are showing renewed interest in vacation and retirement homes.  Most markets are experiencing growing housing demand — but not all.  Included in those neighborhoods experiencing too few potential buyers compared to sellers are amenitized retirement communities developed during the surge of buyers in the 1970s and 80s.  For a variety of reasons, many never fully achieved completion or were adequately maintained.  Now in the new millenium, with New Age consumers, these older communities no longer exhibit the same appeal as they did for their initial residents 25 or more years ago (a large proportion of whom are now considering moving to less active lifestyle locations or their homes have passed on to heirs).  But, new lifestyle choices are constrained by inability to sell their former dream homes (now up to 40 years old) in a community which has lost its buyer attraction.

As buyers continued to decline in number during the Great Recession, residents of many retirement communities became concerned about their increasing lack of mobility.  Several approached Parker Associates for advice on how to revitalize their communities to increase their appeal to the new wave of “Baby-boomer” retirees – prospects who reportedly are purchasing retirement homes in newly developing communities, but by-passing mature communities.

Findings

The problems of aging for buildings and communities are similar in many ways to those experienced by human beings.  Physical infrastructure often was not developed and/or maintained to adequately accommodate the emergent uses required of it.  Current resident interests were not adequately foreseen by community planners.  Assumption of residual property and infrastructure maintenance by property owners associations (HOAs and POAs) often resulted in inadequate funding, and hired management sometimes resulted in rudderless or random deviation from carefully designed initial planning.  Departure of the original developer often was accompanied by cessation of marketing programs, including entrance merchandising (first impressions) and hospitality programs (visitor inducements). Original long-term budgets often were based upon full development buildout, whereas, for a variety of reasons, initial master plans were not completed and annual revenues proved inadequate to growth needs.

In addressing their aging plight, most ownership groups established resident committees which often were dominated by former executives from unrelated industries who applied lessons from their work experience and often proposed consultant firms without significant experience in community real estate ventures. Most appeared to treat the aging problem as a marketing issue without due respect to the interrelationships between the “product” and the characteristics and preferences of current consumers in the retirement age bracket.  First response action usually includes a survey of current property owners (not prospective consumers).  Requests for consultant assistance usually are directed toward advertising and graphics specialists without regard to the holistic nature of the selling problem in terms of product definition and consumer preferences providing an adequate basis for targeted communications. Most house and lot sales are brokered by local real estate agents.

Conclusions

Revitalization for aging retirement communities is an emergent problem of very large scale that has not appeared to attract the interest of professional real estate developers, despite the fact that many of these existing communities with excellent amenities have considerable undeveloped land. They exist in both waterfront and mountain locations at all price levels with a wide range of attractive amenities.

The logical solution to revitalization of incomplete aging retirement communities is to address the issue in similar format to a new master planning process in which the consumer characteristics differ from those of current residents, the product contains irregularities that must be resolved in a revised strategic plan along with both natural and manmade amenities, and the organizational structure must be tailored to the existing organization of each community.  The marketing program must be an organic outcome of strengths and weaknesses of a new strategic plan.

Parker Associates believes that potential joint ventures with the property owners of the dozens of aging retirement communities in the United States Sunbelt constitute excellent  profit opportunities with modest capital funding for experienced community developers.

David F. Parker

david@parkerassociates.com

January 2012

We aren’t presenting this year, but we will be attending many of the events and will be exploring the exhibit hall on Friday, February 10th and Saturday, February 11th. We’d enjoy the opportunity to discuss any of your projects or ideas with you or just to sit down and chat about the state of the market and where it is going. Please contact us at jchris@parkerassociates.com or call us at 904-992-9888 to let us know where and when and we’ll be there.

Most national economists are approaching 2012 with caution.  The intransigent Congress and continuing European financial difficulties do not bode well for a surge in economic growth and a reduction in unemployment.  Projections remain at a modest 2 percent growth as in 2011.   On the positive side, new employment growth has been positive over the past four months, and new capital investment is occurring in several sectors. Florida ranked third in the United States for job growth in 2011 with a rate higher than nationwide for the first time in over three years.  With the third highest population growth rate in the nation, Florida now has over 19 million residents, fourth highest in the nation.

Florida’s senior population is projected to rise by 90 percent over the next 20 years.  By 2030, residents over age 55 will constitute 26 percent of the state’s population.  This increase, in concert with the nationwide surge of this age group, opens up increasing opportunities for new active adult communities  . . . and, as outlined below, creative potential for revitalizing large numbers of aging retirement communities in Florida as well as other Sunbelt states.

Parker Associates has been examining a number of mature retirement communities across the Sunbelt that were developed during the 1970s and 1980s, but never fully completed.  Most are owned by property owner associations that would like to increase their marketing potential for resales as well as add revenue from additional residents. For a more complete description of these potential development opportunities, please refer to our blog at http://parkerassociates.com/blog/index.php.

Lakewood Ranch surged to 391 new home sales at an average price of $397,149 in 2011, more than double the encompassing Sarasota/Manatee average new home sales price of $150,097. At the same time, a total of 307 resales were reported in Lakewood Ranch.  The long-awaited Lost Creek Resort rental community also opened during a busy 2011, as well as a variety of new commercial/institutional establishments.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization – That’s about all we hear about these days when it comes to web sites.  The days of “you need to have a web site” have moved to “you need to be found on the Internet” these days.  Having a web site is not enough.  There are two pieces to successfully launching and having people visit your web site.  The first is to create a dynamic and aesthetically pleasing web site.  The second is being found by the search engines.

The reality of search engines is that 90 percent of people searching on the Internet are using Google.  This may change with the market being saturated with competitive search engines, but that is how it is right now.  Google uses a specific set of criteria when defining where a web site falls given a specific set of search terms.  Type in “search engine optimization” and see what pops up.  Wikipedia is the first listing of the natural search answers when I type it in to Google.  Why is that?  There are a great number of factors that lead to being at the top of the search engine listing for any given search terms.  In fact, there are so many factors, pointing to any one as being more important than another would be impossible.  However, here is a short list of things to check quickly:

• Domain Name – does the domain name have pertinent keywords in it or not.  If not, attempt to buy some other more relevant domain names and set up “landing pages” to help guide people to your web site.
• Meta Tags – are the meta tags for the site set up such as the keywords and description amongst others?  If not, they need to be in there.
• Title – a simple thing such as a title to the page is often overlooked and yet is so important in helping to define the site to the user AND the search engines.
• H1 Tags – are the H1, H2, H3, etc. tags being utilized fully in the text of the site?  Use these liberally within the site in lieu of just plain P Tag text.
• Alt Tags – alt tags should be utilized in every picture and graphic on the site.  Use it or lose it.
• Orphans – rid yourself of orphaned pages.  Often times, pages are rewritten and the old pages are just left to float.  Either delete these or redirect these to new pages.

There are dozens of other things to look for in making your site optimized for the search engines.  Blogging is a great way to get some attention.  If you are in need of implementing any of these ideas or getting a blog embedded in your web site for optimal search engine awareness, contact PTC Computer Solutions at info@ptccomputersolutions.com or http://www.ptccomputersolutions.com/ to find out more.