Oh No! We are getting older- and wealthier and wiser!

Oh No! We are getting older- and wiser and wealthier!

By Karen Soro

The Sharp-Soro Real Estate Team

Henry Turley Realtors

The other day, I was invited to a meeting at the Center City Commission , ahem, excuse me, I mean the Downtown Memphis Commission (DNC) to talk with them and a few other folks about the latest trends in the downtown population. The latest numbers show that we are losing the twenty somethings and DNC are trying to devise a plan to get them here and make them stay. In fact they are talking to one of the large private schools from out east about opening up a downtown campus- and that would be GREAT,and believe me, I hope it happens- but the data that they had shared with me made me ponder the other ramifications of that information.....

So, we lost the twenty somethings to the tune of about 12% from 2000-2009 BUT we INCREASED the population of 55-64 year olds by 66% !! Hummmmm, what could be happening?

Well, in my opinion there are a couple at factors at play here. First of all, when I sell a home to someone in their twenties they are generally coming to Memphis for one thing- some sort of continuing education. Wether it is to do their residency at one of the hospitals, attend the optometry school, the UT dental collage, or the new law school- almost invariably they are here for 4-5 years while finishing up their education. And guess who (normally) buys their homes- Yep, you guessed it- MOM AND DAD! And mom and dad are probably somewhere between 55 and 64. They want to keep junior safe and make a good real estate investment to boot, so they buy a home in the Harbor View area of Mud Island (and occasionally Harbor Town Proper). 

So the twenty somethings are here, in mass, they just are not the registered owners of the homes.  That would also explain some other demographics for the 38103 area-where the average age is 35 , the average household makes $76,000 a year, 54% have college education or beyond and 80% of the population is, get this, SINGLE! 

Now, I think that we should be trying to reach out to the twenty somethings who are not moving here because they would rather raise their kids in the suburbs. But, honestly, I just don’t think that there are that many of them. Think about it - how many people do you know who’s children are well into their 20’s who have NEVER moved out of their parents home? And , while I think that there are some parts of downtown (Harbor Town comes to mind), that I think would be PERFECT to raise children in, I would think that it would be a bit cost prohibitive to a couple who were just getting started (I know it was for us).

So,I say let’s EMBRACE those 55-64 year olds!!! They have the money and the wisdom to invest in Downtown!!

(www.downtownmemphis.com/events/demographics.asp)

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