Posts Tagged ‘Developers’
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
The furor over the 2011 Census reminds me of Sarah Palin claiming she understood international relations because she could see Russia from her front door. That is how all of us will have to operate in the future—without benefit of actual facts guiding our decisions.
I have noted in past posts how we rely on data from the long form to analyze seniors’ housing markets, including data on income and housing. I haven’t noted though how often we rely on mobility data to understand demographic patterns affecting markets and communities. Data from the long form tells us how many people of various age groups lived at the same address five years earlier, how many lived in another community in the same province, and how many lived in another province.
Well that is just downright intrusive, Tony Clement and Stephen Harper would no doubt say. But of course it isn’t intrusive and the data helps us to avoid mistakes. In my forthcoming book I mention the case of a former client of ours who was planning to build a big seniors’ housing project in the interior of British Columba. He was sure that people from all over Canada would flock to the community, partly because his site was in BC, an assumed magnet for seniors, and partly because it was a good site, right behind the Tim Horton’s. We were able to show him, based on long form data, that his assumption was mistaken and that the prospects for his site were not good.
Normally it is a delicate matter to tell someone that their plan isn’t a sound one but this client was far from perturbed. “You have saved me millions of dollars”, he said, and that is true.
The lack of long form data in so many areas of the Canadian economy and Canadian society is going to be an extremely costly, as well as a futile, exercise.
Tags: 2011 Census, Developers, Household Income, Housing Development, Housing Market, Market Study, Migration, Mobility, Sarah Palin, Seniors' Housing, Stephen Harper
Posted in Future, Marketing, Seniors' Housing | No Comments »
Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Conventional wisdom suggests that for supportive seniors’ housing projects (meals, housekeeping, laundry etc), walking-distance proximity to stores and services is, if not essential, then at the very least extremely important. But without sitting down and doing the math, I would say that a minority of supportive seniors’ housing projects in BC are located close enough to stores and services so that people could easily walk to them. Some are in locations that are downright pastoral. Of course walking isn’t necessary for all people—many have scooters that enlarge their geographic boundaries. Scooters though are used by a small minority of seniors, meaning that walking distance is more important than scooter distance.
As well, many seniors’ housing projects have their own buses to take people around to shopping and doctors’ appointments, many have small tuck shops that sell various items, and in any case, most meals are provided on site. So why do people need to walk anywhere? I firmly believe that the answer to that question is this: even if people don’t have to walk anywhere, the fact that they could if they wanted to is an important psychological benefit. And for those people who actually do walk to the store or the bank, it’s more than just a psychological benefit—it’s a physical benefit as well.
Proximity to green space seems to be less important than proximity to stores and services. It’s always nice to have a park to walk through but half the time the weather may preclude the walk. But proximity to schools and other places where children play is almost always considered a decided advantage because it gives people something highly enjoyable to watch. Proximity to seniors’ centres is hugely advantageous, not just because it allows residents to participate in outside events and activities, but because it facilitates two-way interaction. It’s easy to invite people living in the community and using the seniors’ centre to come for meals and events at the housing project, which is one of the very best ways of keeping buildings full. Easy access to public transportation falls into the “it goes without saying” category, whether or not people living in supportive housing projects ever actually take a city bus. Visitors might though and staff almost certainly will.
Of course finding sites that are close to stores, services, schools, public transit, and seniors’ centres is much easier said than done. When “affordably priced” is added to the list, finding a suitable site begins to verge on the miraculous, especially in centres where land is expensive.
Tags: Aging, Aging in place, Assisted Living, Developers, Housing Development, Housing Market, Housing Options, Independent Living, Mobility, Retirement, Seniors' Housing, Supportive housing
Posted in Seniors' Housing | No Comments »
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, May 20th, 2010
Since one of Lumina’s business lines is market studies, it may sound self-serving for me to say that it is false economy of the worst kind to launch a real estate development project of any kind without doing a market study first. But very often, developers have great difficulty grasping the fundamental truth of this observation, partly because of personality. Lack of confidence is not a trait shared by many developers but it is easy to tip over the line from confidence to hubris. Even granting a solid understanding of a market on the part of a developer, a third party study is invaluable in terms of reducing risk and maximizing profitability. Lenders know this, which is why they are usually more likely to require a market study than a developer.
To make the matter more complicated, there are numerous ways for market studies to go off the rails, many of them not especially obvious to casual or uninformed observers, OR, it must be said, to unethical market analysts who write “market studies to order”. Firms like this certainly exist and in most cases, knowledgeable industry participants know exactly who these companies are.
In future posts (interrupted by posts from Phoenix, where I am headed to the ALFA conference on Sunday) I will address some of the ways market studies can go off the rails and what you should watch for. This is assuming of course, that you are interested in a market study that tells you the truth.
Tags: ALFA, Developers, Housing Development, Housing Options, Market Study, Senior Housing, Seniors' Housing
Posted in Market Studies, News, Senior Housing | Comments Off
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