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Today's
Breed of Retirees are Younger, Wealthier and Moving Here.
September 08, 2003 When Jack
Bergstrom and his wife Christine looked for a place to retire last April,
they gave California a close look, ignored Florida altogether and
discovered that South Carolina suited them best. The Bergstroms
were drawn to Charleston by its white-sand beaches, its relatively
inexpensive real estate, its restaurants, cultural opportunities and
outdoor activities. According to a
recent Census Bureau report, an estimated 16,000 senior citizens moved to
South Carolina to retire for pretty much the same reasons between 1995 and
2000. States like
Nevada, Arizona and Florida still rank ahead of the Palmetto State in
terms of popularity among retirees, but South Carolina is catching up,
attracting a wave of retirees who are helping to fuel the state economy. After selling his
medical testing business in Washington, D.C., in 2001, Bergstrom and his
wife had the financial means to live wherever they wanted. They loved the
weather in California's Sonoma Valley and its close proximity to San
Francisco. But they were shocked by housing costs there. "For our
price range, they looked like '50s ranch houses," Jack said. The Bergstroms
ended up choosing Daniel Island Park, where they found a 4,100-square-foot
house that overlooks Beresford Creek. "Charleston
has a city, an airport, great restaurants, culture and the beach is
close," said Jack, who is 57. "People my age don't want to go to
Florida. Asheville is nice but there's no beach, and California's got some
real problems with its budget deficit." Seniors are
having a big impact on the state, helping through their taxes to pay for
public schools, creating jobs and pretty much lifting all boats, according
to Pat Mason, co-founder of the Center for Carolina living, a
Columbia-based research and marketing firm. He said studies
his firm has conducted found that those over 65 generate $8.2 billion in
economic activity and are responsible for generating 118,000 jobs. Mason
said that a study by the University of South Carolina showed that it takes
3.7 new manufacturing jobs to equal the economic impact of one new
affluent retiree household. "Retirees
spend money on almost everything," he said. "They also spend
money on school taxes without putting any people in schools." South Carolina's
overall senior citizen ranks, defined as those over 65, also have grown
rapidly, according to the Census Bureau. In 1990, there were 396,703
so-called seniors in the state. In 2000, that number had climbed to
485,333. About half of the
140,000 or so people who relocate to South Carolina each year are older
than 50, according to Mason. The number of retirees coming to South
Carolina is expected to increase about 5 percent a year until at least
2010, Mason said. Dr. Douglas
Woodward, an economist at USC who worked on the study, said the state
should view the influx of seniors as a plus. "Any time you have
visitors coming from outside and bringing in wealth, it's positive for the
state," he said. "It's
something we should be looking at seriously," he said. "It's a
competitive strength that we have. We need to take advantage of it." Seneca, a former
textile mill town in the Upstate, is doing just that. Its town council
voted in June to spend $4,800 to put out a publication called the Greater
Seneca Retirement & Relocation Guide. "They're
trying to sell the lifestyle to older people," said Dan Owens,
president of Carolinas Active Retirement Association, a Charlotte-based
publishing and research firm. "They know they can stimulate the
economy by attracting retirees." Some lakeside
homes in Seneca are now going for $1 million and up. In McCormick
County, taxes in Savannah Lakes, a development for seniors, amounted to
$2.8 million of the $6.7 million collected by the county. Seniors come to
the Palmetto State for the same reasons the Bergstroms did: a
less-congested life with plenty of amenities. Owens said a lot
of people have misconceptions about seniors. They all don't have blue hair
and drive at a snail's pace. The folks who are moving here are definitely
not the shuffleboard set. "Younger
people often look at someone aged 65 to 67 as being one fall away from a
nursing home," he said. "But the folks we are getting are
productive, healthy and bringing huge amounts of wealth. They're also more
educated than the natives where they settle." He said seniors
nowadays also buy bigger houses, pay more in property taxes and generally
have higher levels of wealth that they bring here to spend. "It's a
transfer of wealth," he said. The Bergstroms
fit that description. Jack loves to swim, play golf, tennis and walk.
Christine loves to speed walk and exercise in the gym. He has a master's
degree in business from the University of Massachusetts, and she graduated
from Northeastern University in Boston with a degree in journalism. They
also don't drive during peak driving periods. Mason said
another reason people flock to South Carolina is because its taxes are
dirt cheap compared to those in the Northeast. "We could double our
taxes and they'd still come," he said. In part, the
tourism industry has been responsible for the senior boom. The state
attracts more than 30 million visitors annually and receives more than $14
billion a year in tourism dollars. A good number of those tourists end up
living here. "Tourism is
the birth mother of in-migration," Mason said. He said that
developers of so-called communities that appeal to senior citizens --
places like Savannah Lakes and Sun City west of Hilton Head -- spend
millions of dollars buying ads in national publications to push their
product. "If you add
all the developers together, it's probably $15 million a year (annually)
that no one (locally) notices. The ads end up in the Chicago Sun Times or
The New York Times," Mason said. Ron Sirisky, vice
president of marketing for the Beach Co., which has several properties
that are aimed at retirees, is spending some of that money. "So many
people are able to retire these days at an earlier age," he said.
"People can retire in their 40s and can do all the things they want
to do." The retirement
boom actually began almost 40 years ago when the late Charles Fraser
developed Hilton Head Island into a haven for well-heeled retirees. From there other
communities sprang up that appealed not only to the well-to-do but those
people looking for a second home and a place to retire. These communities
included places like Litchfield, Wild Dunes, Kiawah and Seabrook islands,
Sun City, Daniel Island and Savannah Lakes Village near Aiken. Another hot spot
is the Grand Strand, the string of beach-town resorts that stretch from
the North Carolina line to Georgetown. Beaufort and Horry counties are two
of the fastest-growing areas of the state with the highest concentrations
of people over the age 65. Mason said the
only factors that can kill the retiree golden egg are those that plague
the Northeast: too many people. For now, though,
the Golden Years for a growing number of Americans are being spent here. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
