Thursday, June 10th, 2010
This week I am working in Stony Plain, a community of about 12,000 people 20 minutes west of the West Edmonton Mall, as these things are always described in the Edmonton area. It’s not where you are relative to downtown Edmonton, it’s where you are relative to the West Edmonton Mall.
On my way here I stopped off in Devon, a town of about 6,000 people midway between Stony Plain and the Edmonton International Airport. There are only 275 people over the age of 75 in Devon and yet there is a 61 unit supportive senior’s housing project (Discovery Place, The Heights) that has only one vacant unit. It is situations like this that keep market analysts humble.
But getting back to the topic of this blog, the current issue of the Edmonton Condo Guide includes a handy chart comparing year-to-date statistics for the four year period between April 2006 and April 2010. In terms of the sales-to-listing ratio, the trough over that period was in 2008, when the ratio was 37% compared to an astonishing 91% in 2006. Things have improved since 2008, but in the first four months of 2010 there were 12,365 listings on the Edmonton MLS compared to 5,645 sales. That’s a long way from the heady days of 2006—7,779 listings; 7,100 sales.
You can see the evidence of the hangover everywhere in Stony Plain. “Immediately available condos”, “condo units for rent”, “move in now”—signs like this are common. It’s nothing like Phoenix, but it is a bit unsettling all the same.
Tags: Advertsising, Age of entry, Aging, Alberta, Developers, Housing Options, Independent Living, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Marketing, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing | Comments Off
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
I have a few favorite ads I like to point to as bad examples of marketing to the older senior crowd (75+). One shows a 60 something very buff man in a bathing suit standing beside his surf board. The project in question is not an active adult golf community on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the picture might just be barely plausible (although the buff man would have to be wearing a wetsuit to withstand the cold water) — it is a supportive housing project where people get two meals a day, weekly laundry, housekeeping, and an emergency response system. No one remotely resembling this man lives in the project, or will ever live in the project. Another of my favorites pictures is of a youngish couple (65-70 I’d guess) in full Mexican regalia, clearly ready to party. Those ads won’t appeal to the real target market (generally 80 year old widows), and if by chance a surfer should show up at the door he will know instantly that he is in the wrong place. Active, independent seniors do not generally want to live in places where many residents are frailer than they are. Confusing or misleading ads serve no useful purpose whatsoever.
Sometimes ads feature the wrong people with the best of intentions. For example, a non-profit project I know included pictures of visible minorities in their ads for a while, trying to convey the message that they were an inclusive and welcoming project. Obviously that is a laudable goal, but the fact that there were almost no visible minorities in that particular community meant running the risk of not appealing to the true target market.
Tags: Advertsising, Aging, Housing Development, Housing Options, Marketing, Retirement, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Marketing, Senior Housing | Comments Off
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