If you thought you read the last "Top Towns" list, think again.

In a preliminary report on retirement home locations, the metro areas of New York, Tampa, Phoenix, West Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Riverside-San Bernardino, Philadelphia and Sarasota will draw the most retirees.

Likewise the states and larger areas of Arizona, Nevada, Florida, the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, Texas Hill Country, Ozarks, Carolinas, and New England will get a large share of retirement home buyers.

The problem is, builders may not be ready for the boom about to be wrought by baby boomers who are tossing in the towel on the traditional 9-to-5.

John Burns of John Burns Real Estate Consulting, a new home industry consulting firm, says many new home builders have not ventured into retirement housing, but older buyers will seek out new homes in urban, suburban and rural areas because resale homes typically aren't built for their needs. Also, retirees will have the money to buy new and big and affluent retirees will want many custom options for what's likely to be their last home.

A preliminary look at Burns' three-part "Retirement Housing Forecast" reveals while retirement communities with age restrictions have received the bulk of the attention from builders building for retirees, most of the demand this decade will continue in non-age restricted communities as healthier and more independent retirees seek greater choices to fit their lifestyle.

Burns says 24 percent of those who turned 65 during the last decade also purchased a home during the decade and 72 percent of those buyers remained in their local metropolitan area.

His reports are in line with others that say most aging boomers want to stay put when they retire.

Burns report, for more than 3,000 counties, will forecast how many homes will sell to those 55 and older in the next decade. The report will also describe 11 distinct type of baby boomer buyers and suggest strategies for home builders who want to meet the needs of those destined to push the envelope on retirement.

Often in line with a related report from AARP's "15 Best Places to Reinvent Your Life," Burns found:

Published: May 2, 2003

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.