Empty nesters flocking to condos

MOVING OUT: Marion Thayer, 69, and her husband, Rob, are moving out of their North Kingstown home and into a duplex condominium. Behind her, employees from moving company Astro of New England handle some of the Thayers’ belongings. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
MOVING OUT: Marion Thayer, 69, and her husband, Rob, are moving out of their North Kingstown home and into a duplex condominium. Behind her, employees from moving company Astro of New England handle some of the Thayers’ belongings. / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

Condominium sales are still soaring in the Ocean State, with the 55-and-older buyer a key catalyst, according to real estate brokers.
Marion Thayer, 69, and her husband, Rob, 70, are in the process of selling their single-family home in North Kingstown for $525,000 and buying a $350,000 duplex condominium on one level at Slocum Heights, a complex under construction that is expected to house up to 27 new condominiums, she said. The Thayers’ new condominium will be ready in the fall. The couple has already moved out of the large brick home where they lived for seven years and is living temporarily with one of three sons.
Downsizing, minimizing maintenance obligations, traveling and spending more time with nine grandchildren are the key attraction to the new home, Marion Thayer said.
“My husband and I are very excited,” she said. “We’re just looking forward to a lot less work and more time to be able to go and do what we want to do.”
According to statistics released in July by the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, sales of condominiums of all types this year have maintained a brisk pace after a soaring 60 percent increase in January. For the state, sales were up 35 percent in June over the previous year; nearly 28 percent for the second quarter and just shy of 32 percent for the first half of 2013.
But according to RIAR President Victoria Doran and former President Jamie Moore, today’s evolving condo market has strong appeal for empty nesters in particular, who “want the benefit of home ownership but not the obligation of a free-standing home.
“As we start getting less inventory in the first-time, single-family homebuyers market, activity shifts to the condo market because there are properties in that price range that may be more appealing,” Moore said. “And we are seeing some really high-end condos [selling].”
Some of the towns with rising condo sales for all types of condos over the past six months include South Kingstown, 41, an increase of 173 percent; Cumberland, 40, an increase of 60 percent; and East Providence, 64, a hike of nearly 83 percent, according to the association.
Karl Martone, a Realtor with the Martone Group at Re/MAX Properties in Smithfield, said he is currently working with more than a half dozen people considering moving or selling to buy condominiums. Martone is also a past president of RIAR. “I’m finding the condo sales are definitely coming back,” Martone said. “I’m personally experiencing the empty nester selling their large house and buying a one-level condo, whether they be age-restricted or not. They’re finding it’s a good time to sell their primary residence and buy a condo because the home is too big to maintain.”
In Northern Rhode Island, developers for some projects like Handy Pond in Lincoln are even switching from townhouse to one-level condominium designs, said Debbie Smith, a real estate broker with Providence-based Residential Properties Ltd. The towns of Cumberland and North Smithfield are seeing the most activity, she said.
Developers “are finding that’s where the need is,” she said.
In the southern half of the state, North Kingstown is particularly active in this arena, said Ginny L. Gorman, a real estate agent for Phillips Post Road Realty in North Kingstown.
“We were moving some last year,” Gorman said. “It just went crazy this year, especially people who want one-level condos. The demand is great for people coming back to the state to live, to retire here and be close to the waterfront. I don’t see it slowing down for the rest of the year. It’s all baby boomers.”
Interest in one-level condominiums is something builder and developer Hugh Fisher anticipated several years ago. Fisher, who is in his 60s, and knows the baby boomer market, is president of Deer Brook Development Corp. and vice president of Sturbridge Homebuilders Inc., both in Warwick.
Whispering Pines at Deer Brook Estates in Exeter has 130 homes, 66 of which are one-level condominiums ranging in price between $350,000 and $500,000. The other properties are single-family homes. All the condominiums are sold, he said. He also has sold all 11 single-level condos at Wyndermere in Warwick in the $170,000 to $200,000 range, he said.
“Single-level living is big because my age group still wants to have a place that feels like home,” Fisher said. “They don’t want to go up and down those stairs anymore. You want something that’s easy to live in, not hard on you. The more I talk to clients who come looking for them, that’s what I hear.” •

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