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My Book: A Few Steps Closer to Publication
Monday, July 26th, 2010
I have posted a couple of times about my forthcoming book currently titled The Future of Seniors Housing: Planning, Building, and Operating Successful Seniors Housing Projects. The original goal was to publish mid-year but now it’s looking more like fall. However great progress has been made over the last few months and I am feeling much less anxious than I have for a long time. There are now seven chapters in the book plus the introduction.
I have said many times that the book has practically killed me and that if I had known yada yada yada. I don’t know if that is entirely true though. I might have written it even if I had fully realized how much work it would be. Because, as all of you who read this blog know, seniors housing is an endlessly fascinating field. It is such a cliché to describe things as labours of love, but that’s how things get to be clichés in the first place—because they are true!
So, coming soon!
Tags: Aging, Housing Development, Housing Market, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, Supportive housing
Posted in News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | No Comments »
2011 Census (Reprise)
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
As the government is still persisting in its wrong-headed plans to ruin the 2011 Census, I thought it would be useful to explain in a little more depth why the Census information is so critical for seniors’ housing analysis.
Here is an example of a table we always use when we are doing a market study or a community housing needs assessment. Here are just a few of the things this table tells us:
- 83% of the 55+ households in this community are homeowners.
- The average income of the renters is $38,509 compared to $73,094 for the owners.
- Single (non-family) renters over the age of 85 have the lowest average incomes.
- Although not shown in the table, the detailed data indicate that there are 565 renter households aged 65+ in this community with an income lower than $14,999. These are the households facing serious challenges in terms of meeting their housing needs.
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Owners |
Renters |
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Family Hshlds |
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Non-Family |
Family Hshlds |
Non-Family |
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Total |
Avg Inc |
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Total |
Avg Inc |
Total |
Avg Inc |
Total |
Avg Inc |
|
55-64 |
4,880 |
$101,729 |
|
1,030 |
$47,153 |
600 |
$61,629 |
510 |
$30,613 |
|
65-74 |
2,450 |
$67,633 |
|
815 |
$36,961 |
220 |
$41,969 |
405 |
$28,178 |
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75-84 |
1,140 |
$63,158 |
|
1,030 |
$32,375 |
125 |
$35,366 |
265 |
$26,375 |
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85+ |
200 |
$50,621 |
|
255 |
$24,358 |
60 |
$47,584 |
235 |
$24,220 |
Sadly, we will never have this level of knowledge about seniors’ housing markets in future years because all of this information comes from the long form.
For-profit and not-for-profit developers, communities, governments, market analysts—we will all be forced to guess what is going on. Tragic.
Tags: 2011 Canadian Census, Aging, Census Data, Household Income, Housing Market, Market Study, Migration, Mobility, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, Seniors' Incomes
Posted in Future, Market Studies, News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | No Comments »
Lowest and Highest Incomes in Canada for 65+ Households
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Note that this is the last time we will be able to discuss this issue, thanks to the Conservatives’ completely bone-headed and inexplicable decision to gut the 2011 Census. No other country in the world runs its Census the way Canada does, or will in 2011. It is a tragic mistake that will take years to correct. I have written to Tony Clement, the Minister who decided to gut the Census, Stephen Harper, my MP, the Globe and Mail, and all of my colleagues who rely on Census data to make sense of our world and I encourage you to do the same. I am surprised the outcry hasn’t been louder. It’s not just the seniors’ housing field that will be severely impacted of course. Please do what you can.
So for the last time for a long time, here are average incomes and rates of homeownership for 65+ households across the country. The lowest incomes are in Newfoundland and Labrador and the highest in Ontario. The proportion of homeowners is fairly similar throughout the country except for Quebec, which has a much higher incidence of renting across all age groups compared to other provinces. It’s interesting that Manitoba is the only other province with a homeownership ratio in the 60s, although average incomes are higher than the national average and house prices are comparatively affordable. Why would that be so? The only thing I can think of is that the incidence of life lease is relatively high in Manitoba. Unlike all other provinces, life lease residents are considered renters in Manitoba so that might explain the lower incidence of homeownership.
Tags: Aging, Home Ownership, Household Income, Housing Market, Housing Options, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing, Seniors' Incomes
Posted in News, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | No Comments »
Kitchens in Independent Living Communities
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
I am in Phoenix at the ALFA conference. It takes a long time to get to Phoenix from Vancouver in spite of the fact that the two cities are in the same time zone (in the summer—Phoenix operates on standard time all year long). I spent part of the travel time reading Jim Moore’s latest book, Independent Living and CCRCs. Chapter 11 discusses high impact design features for independent living communities. Number one on the list is full-function kitchens, even in places serving three meals per day.
Yesterday I toured three life care communities in the area and I will be posting more about these three over the next few weeks, along with highlights from the conference itself. All three had full-function kitchens in their independent living units. My tour guides were shocked when I told them that full-function kitchens in Canadian independent living communities were rare. One of the three is upgrading its units—it is 20 years old—and the new fridges are the two door type with ice and water dispensers on one of the doors. The contrast with Danby bar fridges could hardly be starker. The upgraded stoves are full size with burners that are flush with the surface.
American operators include full-function kitchens more for the impression they create than for their actual utility. Consumers associate the lack of full kitchens with nursing homes and they don’t want to go there!
Tags: Aging, Aging in place, ALFA, Appliances, Assisted Living, Housing Development, Kitchens, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Marketing, News, Senior Housing | Comments Off
The Future of Senior Housing: Planning, Building, and Operating Successful Senior Housing Projects – new book by Kate Mancer, out soon
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
When I say “soon” I mean June or July (2010!). We sold copies of the book at the pre-publication price of $25 (including tax and shipping) at the 3d Canadian Seniors Housing Forum held in Toronto in March. (The conference was organized by inSIGHT—a Western Canadian conference is planned for November 2010.)
The pre-publication price will be in effect for a little while longer. One of the attendees at the Toronto inSIGHT conference suggested that it would make a great Christmas present, and it would!
Here’s what the book is about—this is the back cover:
9,000,000 seniors in 2031: How you can benefit from the coming boom in senior housing
Statistics show that 25% of the 65+ population moves between one census year and the next. In 2013 that will mean 2,225,000 movers! Where will they all live? This book will help you tap that market, whether you are a for-profit or not-for-profit developer, an architect, a lender, a builder, an owner, or an operator.
You will learn:
- Who moves, who doesn’t, and why.
- How large a market area you can reasonably expect to appeal to.
- What consumers in your market area can afford to pay for housing.
- How a good market study can save you millions of dollars.
- What marketing techniques have the most impact.
- What unit types and amenities consumers prefer.
- How you can fill your project up fast and reduce turnover.
- How you can make sure you don’t just have satisfied residents, but very satisfied ones instead—research shows that they are the only ones who will recommend your project to their friends.
Kate Mancer, M.A., is one of Canada’s foremost market analysts in the seniors’ housing and health care field. Her company, Lumina Services, has conducted hundreds of market studies and needs assessments for all kinds of seniors’ housing projects—active adult, supportive housing, assisted living, and long term care. She is a frequent presenter at industry events.
Don’t miss out on pre-publication pricing (and don’t forget Christmas).
Tags: Aging, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Future, Marketing, News, Senior Housing | 1 Comment »
More News from Central Alberta
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
I hate to return to my laundry fetish, the subject of a recent post, but I saw something new (to me) this week. Purely by accident I met one of the Masterpiece residents on my tour and she invited me to see her suite. A clothes lover, she found her unit short of closet space so installed an armoire in the bathroom. I think she got it at Rona or something like that. It looked great. In another closet she installed a washer/dryer—the kind that only requires 110 volts, the maximum allowable in her building (in individual units that is). I used a machine like this in Tokyo recently, but I have never seen them used in seniors’ buildings in North America. You can hook them up virtually anywhere as long as there is a plumbing line nearby. They take about 3 ½ hours to wash and dry a load but you don’t have to do any transferring of wet clothes and the machines are very energy efficient. Research done in the States (admittedly by LG, a major manufacturer of laundry equipment), suggests that in-suite laundry increases rent potential by $40 to $100 per month, and condo prices by $5,000 to $15,000.
For people who don’t want their own in-suite laundry equipment, communal laundry rooms have come a long way in some seniors’ housing projects. Flat-screen TVs, fridges and microwaves, and comfortable chairs can transform the mere act of washing and drying your laundry into a whole new experience. Years ago we wrote a report for CMHC called Aging Tenants in the Private Rental Market. The objective of the report was to discover how private landlords were coping with aging residents. Very well, as it turned out, but one of the memories of that report that has stuck with me was the laundry room in a big building in Victoria. The laundry room was the social hub of the building—people read there, or played cards with their neighbours, or just talked. Of course it was a big room, the only laundry room in the building. People sometimes think that laundry rooms on every floor of a seniors’ building are absolutely necessary, but I have seen many situations where central laundry rooms have worked fine.
Tags: Aging, Appliances, Housing Development, Laundry, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in News, Senior Housing | Comments Off