practical living
Role reversal
What do you buy if you don ’ t want the retirement or the village ?
By Mike Rungie
Housing is always a place to live with whomever you want to , a place to conduct your daily life , a roof over your head , a place to store your stuff , a place to call home and an investment . But after that it ’ s also an enabler of the roles you want in your life – family roles , work roles , leisure roles , community roles , growth roles .
Most people would never willingly buy or rent a house if it didn ’ t support both functions . And many people will even give a priority to the role-function over the roof-function when picking a house .
So how did we end up with so many retirement villages which at best score a “ B ” for roof-function and a “ C ” for role-function ?
Well , because their priority is actually to sell you something else . A sense of security
24 agedcareinsite . com . au for those who see ageing as a disaster waiting to happen . And they ’ re good at reinforcing this at those vulnerable points when there ’ s a lot changing in your life . At the height of the pandemic disaster , retirement village enquiries were up 16 per cent .
Despite their high market visibility , only 6 per cent of older Australians buy into retirement villages . This represents the size of that market segment that prioritises a sense of security over most other life needs . Retirement villages in their current form are unlikely to be a housing option for other market segments , even if they also have a security need .
Still , retirement village operators are desperate to increase “ market penetration ” by recently , with some success , offering housing plus home-care services pitched at frailer people . As they get better , they will give aged care homes a run for their money . Who wouldn ’ t prefer to live in a retirement village with services over an aged care home ? Although , caution is needed here with one evaluation
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Businesses really only sign up for serious change when leaders can see what the new ‘ good ’ looks like .
showing that many of the institutional disadvantages older people are desperate to avoid in aged care homes are also present in retirement villages .
Older people seem to be on the same page here , preferring retirement villages for the frailer stage of their lives . Average age of entry is now 81 . With average age of retirement at 61 , they really should be called “ post-retirement villages ” or even “ nursing villages ”.
Land-lease communities ( where you buy the house and rent the land ) have recently eclipsed traditional retirement village sales . They do go a long way to sorting the concerning price and resale issues for older buyers . But they are still in most ways retirement villages courting the same 6 per cent of the market .
The saddest thing about retirement village operators is that they have never really understood their “ customers ”. And why would they if they can squeeze large numbers of houses often on cheaper , poorly located land , and then keep one third of the value of the house on every sale .
Reported dissatisfaction by customers and governments moving to protect customers might have rung alarm bells . But surely 94 per cent of the market not buying and the other 6 per cent delaying buying might really be a sign that a change could be good for older house buyers and businesses alike . And RSL Lifecare research tells us it ’ s only going to get skinnier , with only
1 per cent of Boomers imagining a retirement village future . It ’ s well established that there are substantial losses caused by moving into aged care homes , but we could not find the loss-list for retirement villages . We did discover that individual village managers had a long list of losses gleaned from residents themselves . Mostly about loss of roles or loss of their things that enabled roles . Sadly , this organisation intelligence has never found its way into strategic plans .
We borrowed from younger people all of the habits they use for getting and keeping their roles : finding purpose , growing and learning , investing in self ,