RETIREMENT INVESTMENT
The traditional concept of apartment block-styled old age homes which offer little more than a roof over one ’ s head and three-square meals a day now falls far short of needs and expectations which range from active lifestyle estates to residential villages that offer frail care .
Modern retirement options centre on offering a quality lifestyle in a secure community for mature people , with many now accepting residents from the age of 55 .
These developments recognise that there are different stages of retirement and therefore offer a choice of packages so that retirees can settle for life knowing that they will be cared for in their homes or in frail care if it becomes necessary . However , such developments are not only more expensive to develop , they require considerably more land than single apartment blocks and finding suitable available land is an obstacle in itself .
Location is only one aspect , because land assembly has its own set of challenges . In order to determine the size of the land required , a decision must be made regarding the level of specialisation because a retirement facility which offers more specialised services can be more compact whilst one that offers only basic services will have to be on a larger site to make it economically viable .
At the upper end of the market , we are seeing a shift towards specialised care and smaller developments at this level are viable projects . Developers are also likely to be faced with zoning regulations and land use rights which may need to be changed before the project can begin .
Sourcing land has become especially challenging in Cape Town which has already seen extensive densification in recent years and , because much of the city is nestled between mountain and sea , further development is severely curtailed .
182 OCT 2022 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine