Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa May/June 2019 | Page 30

RETIREMENT VILLAGES
Death to the
Retirement Village
What Retirement Villages will need to stay
up to date with the current generation
BY LEANI WESSELS
28
MAY/JUNE 2019 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
experience. For example, they demand detailed billing, options
for everything and highly flexible services, a single point of
interaction for services, cashless transacting within the estate
and rules that facilitate the lifestyle and not rules that treat
people like children.
“
It confirmed our hypothesis
that sometimes customers
want to shop online, sometimes
they want to shop in a store,
and sometimes it is a fluid
combination of both. Doggedly
sticking to pure ecommerce was
not the experience our customers
wanted from us.
“
D
evelopers in the Retirement Village industry need to
up their game: the next generation of retirees won’t
be impressed with a sad colour scheme and tasteless
food at the canteen. Grandma has been replaced by Glam-ma.
And she needs a good internet connection to FaceTime with
her grandkids.
‘I believe in the generational theory. At present we are
dealing with three generations. The so-called Silent Generation
who live in our retirement villages, the Baby Boomers some
of whom are in their 70’s and considering retirement villages
and their adult children Generation X, who advise mom
and dad on retirement decisions,’ says Arthur Case, Brand
Marketing Director at Evergreen Lifestyle. ‘Developers need
to understand the difference between these generations and be
able to communicate with all three. The Boomers, in particular,
are looking for a different value proposition to their parents.
Competition is on the increase in South Africa, the old age
and nursing homes of the past will face financial challenges
and eventually be phased out as is presently happening in
the USA. These homes will in time need to be repurposed or
demolished as they will not attract new investment.’
Until now, developers have enjoyed a market of massive
undersupply. Retirees have been only too happy to find a roof
over their heads. However, small villages are struggling and
some have even closed down. Then the likes of companies
like Evergreen, Shire Retirment Properties and Oasis are
embracing the demands from a growing black middle class
and a generation of buyers looking for an extension of an
already active and engaging lifestyle.
‘Future retirement village developers will need to develop
sustainable villages to reduce costs and mitigate the risk of
Eskom blackouts and Day Zero eventualities. They’ll also
needs to have strong balance sheets to weather the ups and
downs of the economy, develop sufficient scale (300 – 800
units) to keep purchase prices and levies affordable and offer
continuous care facilities so that purchasers don’t need to
relocate late in life,’ says Case.
According to Case the following will also be expected of
Retirement Villages:
To be equipped to offer care with dignity for seniors who
develop dementia; to offer smart technology like fibre-to-
home, tele-medicine and high-tech security and to understand
that this is both a people and a property business, but that
people come first.
Currently, developers are noticing that the new crop
of retirees expect more and want a say in their day to day
‘Part of the reason that developers are not up to date with
the omportant trends is that there is no single place to go for
advice or statistics. Government stats are a mess and there is
very little cooperation or organised sharing of information in
the industry despite many attempts to organise. Events like
the Retirement Village Summit at the end of May are vital to
the communication process,’ says Rob Jones, founder of Shire
Retirement Properties.
‘There is a strong reliance on estate agents for some
information, but this often comes at the selling point, which
is often too late anyway. Other sources are Architects and
Engineering consultants. Retirement village living consultants
like myself are few and far between, and many developers
do not recognise the value we add until too late. Retirement
Villages are all about service in the long run, and few
developers understand services or how to build infrastructure
to facilitate service delivery, says Jones.
According to Jones, a critical factor is setting the price
points of both the property and the levies in such a way that
there is stability in the levies over the long-term. ‘There are
many aspects to this planning that go totally ignored in many
developments – and the residents sometimes pay the price.’