Population Demographic Projections and Residential Development Site Selection

Population projections are one of the most useful site selection tools for residential development, and one of the easiest to misread. Vista Site Selection compiles vast amounts of site selection data, conducts analytics and provides projections to help clients select optimal sites for their businesses. It gets complex. At the very highest level, however, there’s a simple rule that drives all business decisions: supply and demand. You don’t have a reason to provide a supply if there’s no demand.

Vista can certainly help your business determine whether that demand exists in a region, both now and into the future. As an example, let’s consider the prospects for a residential developer who’s trying to select a site for luxury homes. Is the Edmond, OK area a good match?

Start with who lives there today

First, let’s learn a little bit about Edmond using consumer segmentation data. About 14% of the current population falls into an affluent segment of established families living in prestigious suburbs. This seems like the kind of audience that our hypothetical developer wants to aim for. But does that mean there will be demand in years to come? After all, families in that affluent segment likely have a home already. Will there be more residents, with similar incomes, in the years to come?

Population growth is a start, not an answer

Edmond’s population, as of this writing, is a bit more than 86,000 residents. That’s nearly 15,000 more than during 2010, and almost 30,000 more residents than the year 2000. Using our projections, we can calculate that the city is likely to have more than 93,000 residents by 2027. Edmond is clearly growing but that alone is not enough to justify luxury home development. Let’s see if we can gauge what kind of income those new residents will bring with them.

Jobs and income decide the demand

According to our occupation data, there are currently about 29,500 jobs in Edmond. By 2027, that will have grown to almost 30,000 jobs. That’s an increase…but one that only represents one new job per 14 new residents. Wealthy buyers with big families could still indicate demand for high-end homes, however.

If we dissect the data a little further, we learn that only 47 of those 500 new jobs will generate a six-figure salary. That might be intimidating for a developer looking to sell $500k homes.

What this means for residential site selection

This anecdote demonstrates the layers of detail that must be considered when looking at population demographics. Vista and our variety of site selection technologies can help place your project near a population that checks all your desired boxes. What population data are you looking for? Reach out and see how Vista Site Selection can help you track it.