The Sun City Carolina Lakes housing community, 25 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., will eventually have between 3,200 and 3,500 homes, This South Carolina community also includes a golf course, a state of the art fitness center, walking trails, and kayaking and canoeing clubs.

There's just one drawback: You can't buy a home there unless one member of your household is 55 or older. And no residents under 19 are allowed.

But don't think that will slow sales for a minute. With 77 million baby boomers--more than a quarter of the U.S. population--nearing retirement, and many of them looking toward 20 or more years of expected leisure, so-called active-adult communities are the hottest sector of the housing market.

Affluent. "Demographics scream that this is the place to be for the next 20 years or so," says Fitch Ratings' home-building analyst Bob Curran. "People of potential retirement age and of good health" is how David Parker, president of real-estate consulting firm Parker & Associates, defines active adults. He says there are three principal things to know about this group: "There are a hell of a lot of them, they have more money than any similar age group in history, and their affluence only increases," as boomers may inherit $5 trillion or more.

Also, they love to spend money, says Parker. So it's no surprise that every major builder is designing a community for them. Pulte Homes, the largest builder of active-adult homes through its Del Webb subsidiary, now has 42 such communities open for sale, with 100 more planned. The trend won't even peak until about 2017, says David Schreiner, vice president of active-adult business development for Pulte.

"These are not the same people the retirement community industry catered to 15 or 20 years ago," says Parker. The average Del Webb homebuyer is 62 and, says Schreiner, tends to be a savvy customer, well aware of a home's role in one's financial future.

That said, buyers may have to settle for less space. "Unfortunately, they find that a smaller house in an active-adult community is the same price as the larger house they sold," says Parker. That's because the prices of new homes have outpaced those of existing homes. And of course there are the amenities. Did your last home come with a fitness center? -Matthew Benjamin.
 
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