Major retirement village developer Stockland has launched a new concept in retirement living, designed to increase the appeal of villages purpose-built for ageing Australians.
The two new developments for retirees in Sydney and Perth, called Aspire, will require residents to pay all costs upfront and in return, retain all capital gains and complete ownership of their home and land - an entirely new concept in the retirement living industry.
Chief executive of Stockland retirement living, Stephen Bull, said the concept came out of research that found only 5% of Australians aged over 65 live in a retirement village. Modern retirees wanted more open plan living, and to maintain their independence.
“We thought, ‘How do we broaden that reach, what are some of the things we can do to attract more retirees to live in a village-type environment?’ given we know that when they do, they tend to love it,” Mr Bull said.
“We thought one of the barriers may be just the financial structure of a retirement village whereby a resident of a traditional village moves in, they take a lifetime lease over the premises but the operator retains ownership.”
Homes in the village will feature two or three-bedrooms on a low-maintenance floor plan, and are to be sold under community title.
The price of a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, one car-park home in the Aspire Sydney village in Marsden Park, would start at $655,000.
A monthly levy would apply to maintain community facilities, but owners would be free to sell the property as desired, with no exit or deferred management fee at the end of their residency.
Even without any growth in the proportion of people living in retirement villages, Australia would need another 100,000 individual homes in the next 20-years.
“That represents on average 5000 new homes a year, just to maintain that 5 per cent penetration rate,” Mr Bull said.
“The market’s not delivering that at the moment, there’s an undersupply of new product and retirees today have very different expectations of those from 10 or 20 years ago.”
Mr Bull added he is confident about the concept’s future, with Stockland looking to take the concept to other states in the near future.
