December 18, 2008 - The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) today commended the U.S. Census Bureau for  its decision to expand the Survey of Construction (SOC) to track the supply of new age-restricted housing for people 55 and older.

 

“We appreciate that the Census Bureau accepted our recommendation to include new questions in the survey, beginning in 2009 and going forward,  related to both single-family and multifamily age-restricted housing,” said Paul Emrath, Ph.D., NAHB’s assistant staff vice president of Housing Policy Research.

 

“With the Baby Boom generation already crossing the threshold to choose housing that can be legally restricted to people their age, it is important for the housing industry and other stakeholders to have a reliable source of timely and statistically valid data on how many age-restricted housing units are being built in the United States,” Emrath said.

 

SOC is a national sample survey tracking building permits, housing starts, housing completions, and more than 40 physical and financial characteristics of new houses, and its findings are widely used by housing industry stakeholders to evaluate market conditions and opportunities.

 

This information is welcomed by NAHB’s 50+ Housing Council, a group comprised of builders, developers, architects and marketers of housing that meets the needs of older adults. “This data will give us a reliable way to describe and evaluate our market,” said Joanne Theunissen, a builder from Michigan and chair of the 50+ Housing Council. “While we’ve always had a handle on our local markets, this will help quantify the big picture.”