This just came in and I was going to post it in my recent “CA Demographic Shifts” thread, but I think it better addresses the OP’s original question here. In it are some interesting charts on demographics (as they relate to housing choices for CA’s largest counties).
The most dramatic changes have taken place throughout Southern California, where Los Angeles and especially Orange County both aged faster than the state average. This may be due largely to the boom in housing prices, which drove out less established young homebuyers while drawing successful older citizens with the accumulated wealth to buy a home. As prices drop and some of the youth are able to return, the recent age rise may well level out. San Diego was also influenced by this boom, but aged slightly less, perhaps due to its many universities, its proximity to the border (and thus to generally younger immigrants) and its association with the military.
Brokers and agents in counties seeing expansive growth in the elderly population, like Orange County and in particular the city of Irvine, need to prepare for a sort of calcification in their demographic. Time has shown that the older people become, the more they act like themselves and the less amenable they are to change. Retirees and senior citizens living in the Southwest are likely to pursue the same SFR-based suburban living that they have known all their lives, with the Census reporting that 40% remain in the same communities. While rental properties flourish in urban centers, and debt-laden inland buyers are forced to rent until their finances recover, the elderly population will (for the main part) continue to live comfortably with well-mown lawns and cars for every garage.
In the meantime, the young population has concentrated itself in California’s Inland Empire, where low cost-housing was accessible within driving distance of major cities and the careers they offer. Not incidentally, Riverside’s population grew faster over the last ten years than any of the other counties listed, gaining 644,254 people – a 42% increase in size – in the first decade of the 2000s. San Bernardino followed suit, growing by 19% while the median age grew by only seven months…
