Posts Tagged ‘Age of entry’

North American seniors’ housing providers should move to Beijing!

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Last week I made a presentation at the Insight Western Canadian Seniors’ Housing Forum, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver. One of the things I talked about was the challenge of widening the market for retirement housing. Usually we consider that a new seniors project can expect to appeal to about 5-10% of the 75+ population in any given market area. Some markets can be higher but most are not.

That’s partly because most seniors aren’t all that keen about the idea of moving to seniors’ housing, which is why we often describe the industry as “need driven” as opposed to “want driven”.  Surveys done by various organizations such as the AARP inevitably find that 95% of survey respondents want to stay right where they are as they age.

Which brings me to Beijing. A recent survey of more than 4,000 people conducted by the City of Beijing found that almost 25% of them planned to move to seniors housing, “a far higher level than the 4% the City had expected”.  Just a little over half the respondents (53.3%) expressed a desire to stay where they were until they died, in very sharp contrast to the 90% the City had expected. On the flip side of the coin, 99% of young respondents to the survey said they would not be able to care for their parents in old age, which could have something to do with the preferences expressed by the elderly themselves.

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Why Seniors Move in the US

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

In the United States, where they have a quaint habit of collecting reliable data that sheds light on matters of interest and importance to their society (unlike Canada, where we consider this practice outrageously intrusive), data from the 2009 American Housing Survey have just been released.

For the 65+ group, the most common reason for moving was to be closer to work/school/other. The questions (and answers) apply to all age groups, which is why “closer to family” doesn’t appear as a specific choice. It is very likely though that closer to family is the primary motivator for this group.

No surprise there. But the second most common reason, chosen by almost as many people as “closer to work/school/other” was “needed larger house or apartment”.  Now that IS surprising.

On the unsurprising front again, only 7% of 55+ households reported living in an age-restricted community. Of course we have no idea what the comparable Canadian figure is, but it is probably lower for reasons I have discussed in earlier posts.

90% of US households of all ages live in unsecured (ie ungated) communities, but new construction is more likely to be in gated communities.

We will post again about the AHS.

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What a Difference Four Years Makes

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.

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Lowering the Average Age of Entry into Supportive Housing (Reprise)

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

If I start getting boring on this subject please let me know! I had lunch with my 85 year old mystery shopper, Edna, today. Edna is well-suited to mystery shopping—she worked on the Enigma project in London during the Second World War. In an interesting twist, so did her father but because of the enormous secrecy shrouding the Enigma project, neither one of them knew about the other’s work until years later.

Edna lives independently and is in great health, although she had a scare a few months ago. Often we in the industry like to say that a scare is just the thing to drive people into the arms of the supportive housing industry, but not Edna! She’s got a pacemaker now and feels better than she has in years.

I asked her if she would consider moving into a project like the one we were touring if she had buckets of money but she said no. She said she was not interested in giving up anything she has now to move to “God’s waiting room”. By the way Edna highly recommends a British TV show of the same name.

That’s the problem in a nutshell—people don’t think of retirement housing as a wonderful carefree way to spend their golden years; they think of it as the last stop before death.

Can we change this view, even a little? Here’s Edna’s suggestion for an appealing tag line: “Have the freedom to do whatever you like. Join us for an endless series of adventures.” That sounds good doesn’t it?

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Lowering the Average Age of Entry into Service-Enriched Housing

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

As mentioned in one of my recent posts, I’ve just spent a considerable amount of time in Alberta. At one of the retirement communities in Calgary (retirement community Alberta-style, meaning quite a lot of personal care services are delivered on site), the average age of entry is currently 87! They recently had a 98 year old move in! Forgive the excessive use of exclamation marks but in light of one of the industry’s holy grails—reducing the average age of entry into service-enriched housing—these are discouraging trends. Part of this phenomenon is undoubtedly due to the recession.  Our industry is less need-driven than we thought, at least it is when house prices and the value of investment portfolios fall at the same time.  But what will happen when the recession, or more importantly, people’s memories of the recession, end? Will we have a flock of 80 year olds clamouring to move in?

Maybe not. I used to think we really could reduce the average age of entry by focusing on fitness and wellness, including full kitchens and washer/dryers in units, doing away with assigned seating and defined meal times, letting people choose whether they wanted to eat one, two, or three meals in the dining room or the bistro, running a full slate of educational events on-site and off-site, hiring concierges…the list goes on.

Now I am not so sure but stay tuned! It is a subject we will often return to in coming posts.

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