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Age remains one of the property sector’s most familiar ways of defining the later living audience. Jonty Roots, managing director of Boomer + beyond, argues that understanding where people are in their lives offers a more useful guide to what they value, how they make decisions and when a move begins to feel relevant.
Two people can be the same age, live within a few miles of one another and occupy completely different versions of later life.
One may have recently stepped away from a demanding career and be working out how to use the time that has suddenly opened up. Travel, family, cultural interests and neglected personal projects are moving towards the centre of life. Their current home may be larger than they need, but it still works and moving feels distant.
Another may already be thinking carefully about the years ahead. They are beginning to question whether their home, location and finances will continue to support the life they want. They remain independent and active, but future housing choices have become a real subject of conversation.
Treating both people as part of a single age-defined audience tells us very little about how either will respond to later living.
That is the starting point for Life stage. Not age., a framework developed by Boomer + beyond through more than eight years of qualitative and quantitative research with older homeowners and the family members who influence their decisions.
The framework does not attempt to describe every experience of later life. Our research has primarily been conducted in retirement living, care, health and wellbeing, often among homeowners over 70. It does, however, reveal a consistent pattern: behaviour changes less predictably with birthdays than it does with shifts in identity, time, priorities, health, relationships and outlook.
• Age is easy to measure, but limited as an explanation
Age remains useful for market sizing, planning assumptions and eligibility criteria. Problems arise when it becomes a proxy for motivation.
A person’s age does not tell us whether they are newly liberated from work, thoroughly enjoying a self-directed lifestyle, quietly exploring future options or actively adjusting their daily routines around changing needs. Those positions create very different relationships with home.
One participant in our research expressed the distinction simply: “I don’t think about my age. I think about how things are now, and what feels right for the next few years.”
That perspective helps explain one of later living’s enduring challenges. A well-designed community can offer security, social connection, easier maintenance, access to support and an attractive lifestyle, yet remain psychologically irrelevant to someone who associates the category with a stage of life they have not reached.
This does not necessarily mean that the proposition is wrong or that the customer lacks awareness. The offer and the individual may simply be operating on different timelines.
• Four different relationships with home
The Life stage. Not age. framework identifies four broad stages. They should be understood as a fluid journey rather than rigid categories, with movement shaped by circumstances rather than a predetermined timetable.
1.Redefining life
The first stage commonly follows a move away from full-time work. Familiar structures begin to loosen and people start reconsidering how they want to spend their time and what will provide purpose.
Housing may enter the picture, but usually as an exploratory possibility rather than an urgent decision. People may browse locations, imagine alternative lifestyles or discuss future plans with friends while remaining broadly content where they are.
At this point, conventional later living language can feel premature. Messages centred on care, support or “future-proofing” may ask people to identify with needs they do not recognise. The more relevant property conversation is often about possibility: where they might live, what a different home could enable and whether it could support a fuller use of their time.
2.Living differently
Once the initial transition settles, many people enter a highly expansive phase. Time becomes more flexible, daily life more self-directed and spending increasingly oriented towards travel, leisure, culture, family and experience.
The relationship with property in this stage is particularly interesting. Home remains important, but its value may be judged by how well it supports a chosen lifestyle. Location, connectivity, hospitality, social opportunity, lock-up-and-leave convenience and access to culture can matter as much as the apartment itself.
This is where the later living sector has an opportunity to broaden the frame. People may be receptive to a compelling residential lifestyle while rejecting anything that feels like a response to ageing. The same individual can admire the physical environment and communal offer, yet conclude that it is “not for me” because of how the category is presented.
The challenge is not simply to make later living look younger. That approach can become another stereotype. Greater relevance comes from reflecting the variety, confidence and autonomy already present in people’s lives.
3.Planning with purpose
Later, attention begins to extend further ahead. Life remains active, but people start asking more deliberate questions about their home, finances, location and future support.
This is often the point at which later living becomes visibly relevant to the market. Research begins, developments are visited and conversations with partners or adult children become more frequent. Importantly, interest does not always mean immediate intent.
People can remain in this stage for several years. They may be serious, informed prospects whose timetable does not fit a conventional sales funnel. Pressure to act can erode trust, while useful information, transparent costs and opportunities to engage gradually can build it.
For operators, this has implications for how leads are valued and nurtured. A person who is not ready to reserve may still be making a significant long-term decision. Their apparent hesitation may reflect care rather than lack of interest.
4.Adjusting the rhythm
In the fourth stage, changes in energy, mobility, health or personal circumstances become more tangible. Ease, familiarity, comfort and reliability carry greater weight.
The desire for independence remains powerful, but the way independence is sustained begins to change. Support may be welcomed when it enables control rather than replacing it. A manageable home, trusted services, accessible surroundings and confidence that help is available can become central to quality of life.
Later living has traditionally communicated well in this territory because its practical benefits are clear. The risk is allowing this stage to define the whole category.
When every prospective resident is shown through the lens of support, reassurance and future need, people in earlier stages struggle to see themselves in the offer. The sector may then become most persuasive only once circumstances have narrowed the customer’s choices.
• The property opportunity begins earlier than the move
The commercial value of a life-stage perspective lies in recognising that the decision journey begins long before someone becomes a qualified lead.
Attitudes towards later living are formed through many earlier experiences: seeing how parents or friends have moved, reassessing the role of home after retirement, considering how wealth should support lifestyle, imagining a different location or noticing that the current property demands more effort than it once did.
Operators cannot and should not attempt to convert every person at the earliest stage. They can, however, decide whether their brand and proposition create relevance before a need becomes urgent.
That may influence:
• how developments are positioned within the wider property market
• whether communications lead with lifestyle, planning or support
• how hospitality and community are designed
• the balance between private space and shared experience
• the role of rental and other lower-commitment routes
• how long-term prospects are supported through the decision process
• how adult children are included without displacing the future resident
It may also require a more flexible view of the product itself. Someone redefining life may respond to optionality, stimulation and the freedom to explore. Someone planning with purpose may prioritise transparency, control and gradual engagement. Someone adjusting their rhythm may place more emphasis on ease, trust and dependable support.
The building cannot become four entirely different products, but the proposition surrounding it can acknowledge these different starting points.
• A more useful question
The sector often asks: Who is our target customer?
A life-stage approach encourages a further question: What is happening in that person’s life when our offer becomes relevant?
That shift opens a richer discussion about timing, motivation and meaning. It helps explain why people of the same age can react so differently to the same development, why an apparently suitable prospect may remain unmoved and why the same person can reconsider the category several years later.
Later living already has many of the ingredients people value: attractive homes, community, hospitality, convenience, wellbeing and access to support. The opportunity is to connect those ingredients more closely to the life someone is living now, rather than the age the market has assigned to them.
When the sector understands that context, it can engage people earlier without manufacturing urgency, communicate more respectfully and design places that feel relevant across a longer part of the journey.
Age may tell us how long someone has lived. Their life stage tells us far more about how they want to live next.
Jonty Roots is managing director of Boomer + beyond, a research and brand agency specialising in later life. The agency works with operators and organisations to translate audience insight into more relevant brands, products and customer experiences.
