Retirement village units increasing in size for baby boomers
With almost 34,000 retirement units already running, and more than 100 new villages under way, New South Wales is leading Australia in meeting the housing needs of senior citizens, at a time when almost three million Australians are over 65, and five million baby boomers are about to break that age barrier.
The boom in retirement villages is expected to see the sector treble in size to $78 billion within ten years, with major companies such as Aveo Live Well, Babcock & Brown (Primelife), Stockland, AMP Capital Meridien, Becton, Australian Unity and Macquarie Bank now owning and managing over half of the country’s retirement units, and more than a third of the villages.
Research by Jones Lang La Salle found that before, half the village units had one bedroom with another third having two bedrooms, but that there is a recent trend towards larger units.
Now, more than half have two bedrooms, and an increasing number have a third bedroom/study, so retirees have the capacity to have friends and family stay with them.
The most popular form of ownership agreement today with both residents and village management is the loan and licence arrangement , where the retiree makes an initial interest free loan to purchase their unit.
A total of 65% of residents preferred this method to leasing ( 26%) or strata title ( 8%).
