Seniors will not move (Airbnb solution?)

One standard narrative of geographic mobility in the USA is that young people in the city get married and buy a house in the suburbs in order to start a family. The classic home seller would be a senior who is downsizing into a smaller home, perhaps an apartment.

Seniors, however, are not selling their suburban houses, and this contributes to the high cost of housing.

However, the notion that society can bribe senior citizens to downsize their living arrangements is delusional.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/can-we-live-longer-but-stay-younger

“We have a belief that we send out our elderly to institutions. The fact of the matter is that less than ten per cent of the elderly go into nursing homes or assisted living. The senior-housing industry is building inventory meant for seniors, but eighty-seven per cent of retirement-age people want to stay in the same home where they have the three ‘M’s: marriage, mortgage, and memories. The problem is that they can’t. Not when the model is a two-story house with a bedroom and the bathroom upstairs. If we can solve the stairs problem, we won’t need new housing.”

Actually, there will still be a need for new housing -- for young families that would have moved into the houses of seniors if the seniors had vacated them for something smaller.

There might be a solution.

Seniors refuse to buy products designed for seniors because it reminds them that they are old.

Old people will not buy anything that reminds them that they are old. They are a market that cannot be marketed to.
Heinz, back in the nineteen-fifties, tried marketing a line of “Senior Foods” that was, essentially, baby food for old people. It not only failed spectacularly but, as Coughlin puts it, poisoned an entire category. The most perverse of these failures is perhaps that of the PERS, or personal-emergency-response system, a category of device—best known for the hysterically toned television ad in which an elderly woman calls out, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”—designed as a neck pendant that summons emergency services when pressed. It is simple and effective. “The problem is that no one wants one,” Coughlin says. “The entire penetration in the U.S. of the sixty-five-plus market is less than four per cent. And a German study showed that, when subscribers fell and remained on the floor for longer than five minutes, they failed to use their devices to summon help eighty-three per cent of the time.” In other words, many older people would sooner thrash on the floor in distress than press a button—one that may summon assistance but whose real impact is to admit, I am old. 

“We buy products not just to do jobs but for what they say about us,” Coughlin summarizes. “Beige or light-blue bracelets or pendants say ‘Old Man Walking.’ ”

Seniors love to buy products marketed toward Millennials.

The most effective way of comforting the aged, the researchers there find, is through a kind of comical convergence of products designed by and supposedly for impatient millennials, which secretly better suit the needs of irascible boomers. The best hearing aids look the most like earbuds. The most effective PERS device is an iPhone or an Apple Watch app. 

Such unexpected convergences have happened in the past. Retirement villages came to be centered on golf courses, Coughlin maintains, not because oldsters necessarily like golf but because they like using golf carts. It’s the carts that supply greater mobility in and around the village. The golf comes with them. This process of “exaptation” has now accelerated. TaskRabbit and Uber and Rent the Runway—services that provide immediate help for specific problems—are especially valuable for an aging population.

It could be that if seniors will not move out of their house and make way for a family, the family could be added to the house through home sharing. The Millennial flavor of Airbnb might make this all the more appealing to seniors.

https://www.aarp.org/money/budgeting-saving/info-2018/airbnb-hosts-making-money.html

Adults 60 and older are the fasting-growing demographic of Airbnb hosts, and they are making lots of money at it. Older adults make up 16 percent of all hosts and in 2016 collectively earned $747 million in income.

In 2017, age 60-plus hosts in Washington, D.C., earned $5.5 million (a 50 percent increase from 2016), with the typical host in this age bracket earning $10,600. Similarly in Boston, hosts 60 and older earned $5.3 million (a 94 percent increase from 2015), and the typical host earned $13,400. In 2016, the typical host in New York shared her home for 37 nights and supplemented her income by $7,100. While in San Diego, a typical senior-hosted listing was booked for 41 days per year, with the host earning $11,256.

“By home sharing, seniors can age in place without facing economic strains, or can simply take home some supplemental income that can be applied toward living expenses or home modifications that make aging at home safer and more comfortable,” said Josh Meltzer, who heads Northeast policy for Airbnb.

Also, seniors just seem to enjoy it.

In addition, two-thirds of all older hosts are women — a demographic that is the company’s fastest growing and also the most popular. Women 60 and older get a higher percentage of five-star reviews than any other age and gender combination among hosts.

“Older Americans aren't just embracing home sharing for the economic potential, but as a way to maintain social connections as they age," Meltzer said. "As a result, they are some of Airbnb's most energetic, enthusiastic and welcoming hosts. The outstanding hosting by older adults on Airbnb means that not only are older Americans benefiting from participating as hosts because of the supplemental income, but also the overall Airbnb community is benefiting from their participation due to the high-quality listings they offer."

Would it be possible to get the seniors to opt for long-term home sharing? If so, then how?