Trend towards apartments contested
With an ageing population, investors have commonly been told that a shift towards apartments will be coming from both the young and the ageing, but one demographer isn’t so sure.
In a recent post on .idblog called ‘Are empty nesters moving to inner city apartments?’, .id (informed decisions) demographer, Glenn Capuano, took it to the statistics to identify whether this shift has really been occurring.
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He noted that “There is a really clear trend towards young families moving into these places”. However, he continued to say that there is “no trend towards the elderly – there is a small spike among people in their early 60s, which could be the trend alluded to by the myth. But when you look at it against the large population increase in this group (the early baby boomers), it’s pretty minor.”
While he pointed out that the elderly do downsize into medium density and there is certainly a peak in youth living in higher density housing, even at 90 years and over, “only 25 per cent of the population outside care are living in medium density housing”.
This may be a blow to those looking at apartment dwellings, with BIS Shrapnel also recently predicting a slowdown in any shift towards apartments previously being seen, with Generation Y moving towards detached properties.
Overall, Mr Capuano noted, “the type of accommodation you live in is highly dependent on age, and high density is very popular among the young”. He also explained that it was highly dependent on the specific area as well, with some suburbs having a noticeable trend towards apartment living on a micro level.
