Which expenses do you expect to change most from 2008, and how will you offset them?
Remodelers don't usually think of aging-in-place modifications as a chance to upsell, but Dan Bawden does. Earlier this year, his Houston-area company, Legal Eagle Contractors, opened The Idea Center: a home remodeled into an office/showroom equipped with aging-in-place innovations, from the front porch's removable wheelchair ramp to threshold-free doorways, good lighting, and lever door handles.
One year after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, the region is still very much in the early stages of recovery. C. Roy Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, said in early July that just 225,000 of the pre-storm population of 484,000 were currently living in the city.
Baby boomers spend more money on remodeling projects than any other segment of the population, according to a report by Harvard University's Remodeling Futures Program. Adding universal design features, however, is usually not on their agenda, nor do many remodelers think of it as a priority.
Though they're not exactly new ideas, a recently established nonprofit group hopes to give aging in place and universal design new national prominence. The event was held last fall in conjunction with the first ever Aging In Place week, a series of events the two groups coordinated nationwide.
