Aging in place, the strongest residential demand signal

The demand, in four numbers

The second-quarter report filled in the rest. Multigenerational accommodation rose to a net +53% from +49%, first-floor primary suites to +52% from +45% and wider doorways and hallways to +47% from +39% (AIA HDTS Q3 2026 report, 26 Aug 2026). AIA’s own summary was that homeowners are investing in their homes with the intention of aging in place.

These are net scores: the share of firms seeing a feature’s popularity rise, minus the share seeing it fall, on a panel of hundreds of residential firms. A net of +65% is a statement about momentum, not a count of houses. It says the gap between architects seeing this demand grow and those seeing it shrink widened by 16 points in a year.

Professionals and homeowners say the same thing. Among the roughly 700 bath professionals NKBA surveyed, 32% say aging in place is now mainstream and 48% say it is approaching mainstream (NKBA 2026 Bath Trends, as reported by Floor Daily, 24 Nov 2025). Among 1,619 homeowners with a bathroom project, wet rooms appeared in 18% of renovated baths, from 13% two years earlier, and accessibility was a motive for 40% of those building one, up 14 points (Houzz 2026 Bathroom Trends Study, 30 Sep 2026). In kitchens, Boomers hold 32% of remodel projects and 31% of them want a more accessible kitchen (NKBA 2026 Kitchen Trends, 18 Sep 2025, 634 professionals).

Two items in the same family did not rise. Ramps, elevators and elevator shafts slipped to +31% from +35%, and on-grade entries to +28% from +31% (AIA HDTS Q3 2026 report, 26 Aug 2026). Our reading: clients want a house that works for twenty years without looking adapted. A suite on the entry level and a shower you walk into sell. A ramp at the front door does not.

Who pays

Owners aged 65 and over accounted for 27% of US home improvement spending in 2023, up from 14% two decades earlier, and Harvard’s Joint Center projects that older owners will account for the majority of spending gains as they adapt homes for accessibility (JCHS, Improving America’s Housing 2025). This is the client with equity, time and a reason, who is not moving.

It is also the client in the only residential segments the panel rates as improving: additions and alterations at a net +38% and kitchen and bath remodelling at +34% in the second quarter of 2026, against -25% for first-time and affordable homes (AIA HDTS Q3 2026 report, 26 Aug 2026). Staying put and remodelling are the same demand.

Typical scopes and what they cost

The costs below are modelled national averages for a defined professional scope from Zonda’s Cost vs Value 2025 report, published September 2025 (via JLC); no 2026 edition had been published as of 10 October 2026. They are not quotes, but they are the best public figures for a scope an architect would draw.

Read the right-hand column carefully. A universal-design bath costs about $16,000 more than the midrange version and recoups less at resale. The client is buying years at home, not resale value, and the conversation should say so. Houzz’s median bathroom spend of $15,000 in 2025 (Houzz 2026 Bathroom Trends Study, 30 Sep 2026) covers every scope including cosmetic ones; the gap between the two figures is roughly the scope an architect adds.

The scopes in the data, in rough order of momentum, are a first-floor primary suite by addition or conversion (+52%), wider doorways and hallways (+47%), pocket, sliding and French doors for privacy (+25% from +15%), single-floor living (+41% from +39%) and an in-law suite or junior ADU (+34% from +46%, still the most popular single room for 11% of firms) (AIA HDTS Q2 and Q3 2026 reports, 20 May and 26 Aug 2026).

Code anchors

Three sections of the 2021 International Residential Code set the minimums these scopes have to clear. Local amendments vary, so check the code your jurisdiction has adopted before relying on any of this.

• R304: a habitable room needs at least 70 square feet and at least 7 feet in any horizontal dimension (2021 IRC, Chapter 3). That rules out some conversions of small ground-floor rooms into a suite.
• R305.1: habitable space needs a 7-foot ceiling; bathrooms need at least 6 feet 8 inches, and a shower needs 6 feet 8 inches over a 30 by 30 inch area at the showerhead (2021 IRC, Chapter 3). Converted garages and basements often fail here first.
• R310.1: every sleeping room needs an operable emergency escape and rescue opening (2021 IRC, Chapter 3). A suite created in a basement or an interior room has to solve this before anything else.

Nothing in that chapter sets accessibility dimensions for a private house. Door widths, turning space, a curbless shower and lever handles are design decisions you specify and justify, not minimums an inspector enforces. That is a selling point: the client is paying for judgement the code does not supply.

Packaging and pricing

The first product is a paid feasibility visit: a fixed fee for an hour or two on site and a written note on which rooms can become a suite, the structural and services implications, whether a wet room works at the existing floor level, and a budget band from the modelled costs above. It turns a vague “we want to stay here” into a scope. No survey in our notes measures demand for feasibility work, so this is an option that fits the evidence, not a trend we can cite.

After feasibility, phase the fee: hourly or fixed for feasibility, then a fixed fee for the defined scope with a priced schedule of changes. The reason is in the homeowner data: 31% of renovating homeowners expanded the scope mid-project and 37% went over budget (Houzz & Home Study, 22 Apr 2026, 20,358 users). The fee proposal playbook sets out the structure, and our guide to fee structures covers hourly, fixed and percentage fees.

Marketing the service

A service with a name is easier to refer and easier to find. Name it on the website in the client’s words, give it its own page with the modelled costs and code anchors, so a referred client arrives informed. Our client guide to renovating to stay in your home is written to be sent before the first meeting, and carries a box pointing back to the architect who sent it.

• Reply on the day. Our article on why studios lose projects they have already won covers response speed, and the enquiry to consultation playbook gives the sequence.
• Send the client guide with the first reply, then book the feasibility visit.
• Publish one short post each quarter when the AIA Home Design Trends Survey lands, with the new net scores and what you see locally. The Q4 2026 report is next.
• Ask every client over sixty what they called the problem before they called you, and use their words on the page.