The phrase 55-and-over community may conjure up images of Southern Florida, California, Arizona and … Metro-West?

It may sound odd to some, but the MetroWest area of Massachusetts is home to an emerging trend that has already swept through traditional retirement areas: the adult community.

According to a survey conducted recently by the Del Webb Corp., a nationwide developer of adult communities, as of Jan. 1 an American will turn 50 years old every nine seconds. Currently, 32.8 million Americans are aged 55 to 69. That figure will increase to 39.7 million by 2005, an increase of 21 percent, the survey said. That number grows to 47.5 million by 2010, a 45 percent increase, and 55.2 million by 2015, a 68 percent increase, the survey said.

The baby boomers and empty nesters are looking for smaller living quarters while still maintaining their independence, and Massachusetts developers are now beginning to meet the need.

This has been a fairly recent trend in Massachusetts, said Nelson Zide, senior vice president of ERA Key Realty Services in Framingham. In Florida, this is not a new process, but here the concept is new.

Zide said traditional New England towns may have been hesitant about bringing in a different type of community, or could have had concerns about the age requirements for living in those communities, which slowed the migration of 55-plus communities to the Bay State.

Either the towns have gotten looser or age doesn’t seem to be a problem any more, because all of a sudden they’re springing up, Zide said.

Traditionally, as New Englanders neared retirement age, they would begin to move south to warmer climates. But a lot of people now want to stay near their families, and they don’t want to go into full retirement, Zide said. They may want to downsize, but there’s no need for them to move into an assisted living facility. And with more people in this category than ever before, you’ve got the hottest housing market, Zide said.

In the aforementioned communities, the principal requirement is that all residents in the communities be 55 years old or older. The residential units, while not necessarily smaller in square footage, typically have fewer, larger rooms. Many of the home designs incorporate single-floor living for easier accessibility.

Although the residents own their own home, they must pay a monthly maintenance fee to live in the community. While services vary by community, typically they include lawn maintenance, trash removal, snow plowing, and other tasks residents may no longer want to perform themselves.

People realize they don’t want to maintain a whole house, but they still want to have a home – something they can afford – before they move down to Florida, said Sue MacDonald of Brigham Realty in Marlborough. Although it is a full-service real estate office, the one-and-a-half-year-old business focuses primarily on marketing properties in 55-and-over communities, MacDonald said.

We’ve positioned ourselves to become the premier real estate agency for 55-and-over communities, and we’re hoping to conquer all of New England, she said.

Sales in the Brigham office are brisk.

We’re especially active, she said, adding that there were only four units still available at the Villages at Marlboro East, a community the company represents exclusively. Other communities nearby include the Villages at Crane Meadow and Wildwood at Southborough, to name a few.

Now, these communities, they can’t build them fast enough, Zide said.

MacDonald said the market for these types of communities has existed for a while. When people thought of retirement, they only thought of Florida., she said. It took creative builders to realize the potential here. Now, more and more of these communities are coming on line.

These communities are not old communities, she stressed, adding that her office has a Web site that attracts 55-plus buyers surfing the Internet. MacDonald said that many of the residents continue to be active and several still work.

According to the Del Webb survey, between 1996 and 2006, the fastest growing segment of the American work force – for both men and women – will be the Baby Boomer workers aged 55 to 64. Also, the survey reported 61 percent of Baby Boomers are likely to work for pay 20 hours a week versus just 19 percent of those 65 and older.

Some residents who purchased their homes in the communities through Brigham Realty have ended up working as agents at the real estate office, MacDonald reported.

Attractive to Towns
Because the units in the adult communities are slightly smaller than their previous homes, MacDonald said the prices are reasonable. Homes in some of the communities range from $150,000 to $250,000.

If the adults moving into these communities have built up enough equity in their old houses, they can afford to buy into the 55-plus community and get something down South for when they visit Florida in the winter, Zide said.

In addition to benefiting the adult population looking for home ownership with less maintenance, the 55-plus communities are also benefits to the towns where they are located, Zide said.

I think the towns realize they can get the tax revenue, while at the same time they don’t get any additional kids to tax the school system, Zide said. If you’re a town that’s paying 70 percent of your taxes for schools, this is like found money.

In addition to adding to the tax rolls of towns, MacDonald said the increase in sales of homes in the 55-plus communities could have an added benefit for real estate agents and prospective homebuyers: an increase in inventory. With more residents giving up their longtime homes to move into the communities, more of the housing stock is opened up.

This frees things up for the young people, she said. Now they have more of an opportunity to purchase homes.

This comes at a crucial time when housing supplies remain at low levels. I’ve never seen the MLS [multiple listing service] book so thin, she added.

Zide, however, said the number of additional homes on the market because of the new communities is negligible at best. Right now, nothing’s going to help, he said, referring to the lack of inventory. At one point, the first-time homebuyers fueled the housing market, but because of the high prices there’s no first-time homebuyer inventory.

[The additional units] have helped, but it’s not a flood of inventory, he added.