Lend Lease releases population impact study.

A research report released recently by Lend Lease Real Estate Investments calls the aging of America the single most important demographic trend of the next 50 years, with a significant potential impact on the real estate industry.

Evolving America: Real Estate's Demand Profile also says that the trend is less foreboding than the demographic outlook for other industrialized nations - primarily due to the continuation of current U.S. immigration trends and the expectation that Baby Boomers will stay active in the workforce longer than previous generations.

Today's affluent Baby Boomers - who continue to dominate American society - are likely to work longer and live longer than their parents, migrate more at older ages, gravitate to senior-friendly retail settings and move into senior housing. However, senior housing developers are warned not to overbuild now - the full impact will not be felt until after 2015.

Immigrants are currently fueling population growth of major "gateway" cities, filling vital labor force needs, including construction jobs; keeping rental housing and retail demand strong; and eventually will follow the Boomers from the cities to suburbs and to other U.S. metro areas, where job and home ownership growth will be strong. The report points Out that after 20 years, the home ownership rate for the nation's foreign-born population actually exceeds that of native-born Americans.

The report predicts that sprawl - outmigration from central cities to suburbia, and from older suburbia to exurbia - will persist, but at a slower pace than during the 70's and 80's, as Generation Xers (currently age 34-45) and the Net Generation (19-43) increasingly opt for more convenient lifestyles.

Assuming that immigration flows at current rates or increases, rental housing demand will continue to be strong and actually stabilize cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Washington DC, Boston and Houston. Such fast growing cites as Atlanta, Charlotte, Austin, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas will benefit when immigrants then gravitate to them to meet labor shortages.

Overall, locational shifts of population will generate much of the demand for new construction over the next decade for all types of property, according to the report.

The report was authored by a team led by M. Leanne Lachman, a principal of Lend Lease Real Estate Investments.

"As the real estate industry moves into the next century, it is critical that we fully understand the social forces that are driving demand for our various products," Lachman said. "In the case of housing development, decisions about size, location, buildingtype, design, ownership vs. rental, subsidized vs. market rate, timing and other considerations are very sensitive to evolving demographics. But as this report indicates, all types of property are impacted."

Lend Lease Real Estate Investments is one or the nation's largest apartment (multifamily) investment managers, with almost 100,000 units in its portfolios, managing $31 billion in real estate and mortgages for more than 500 institutional and private clients in the U.S.