OH … yes another paid advertising ploy, self promotion, and above all a business opportunity.

Above all else it’s about making money.

This lot are making themselves out as if they are the authors of all things good about buying and selling for those over 50, and are attracted to buying something smaller.

Well, do they detail any of the pitfalls of moving into a ‘retirement living’ complex?

-do they get into an analysis of the costs and other conditions that may apply?

It’s ‘buyer beware’ … it always has been …

Remember how the Residents in AVEO were ripped off … as revealed in the Four Corners ‘BLEED THEM DRY … UNTIL THEY DIE’ … AVEO has now sold out to Brookfield and Villagers money is now off to the Caymans!

View:
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/australian-nursing-homes-off-to-bermuda-as-brookfield-swallows-aveo/

Introducing Downsizing: A New Way to Reach Australia’s Most Active Buyers

Buoyed by decades of capital growth in their family home, and looking for lifestyle-rich properties, downsizers are an increasingly important target market for Australian developers.

The good news is that, with the launch of Downsizing.com.au, developers now have a new way to reach this booming over 50s market.

Downsizing.com.au is the new name of the portal founded as Seniors Housing Online in 2003 by NSW-based sisters-in-law Catherine and Amanda Graham.

Catherine and Amanda founded the company following a fruitless online search for retirement property for an elderly relative.

Over the past 16 years, the portal has been used by millions of Australians to find traditional seniors housing, such as retirement villages or land lease communities.

Now, the portal is expanding its focus to all downsizer-friendly property, including apartments and villas, with the launch of a refreshed mobile-friendly website and new product offerings.

“The changes we are announcing today cement our position as Australia’s number one destination for all over 50s property,” Amanda said.

“We are making this change to reflect the fact that baby boomers are doing things differently and want to look for a wide range of accommodation options.

“They are downsizing with vastly higher lifestyle expectations and greater freedom of choice than prior generations. We also know that developers are changing their approach to better cater for this market segment.”

Downsizing.com.au has a loyal following, with some 165,000 overall website visits each month and more than 40,000 email subscribers and Facebook followers.

CAAN too would like more than 40,000 … why not 100,000 LIKES to inform more of you about the FACTS!

Like our Facebook and Search our Website

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Downsizing.com.au’s audience is undergoing rapid growth, with a 116 per cent increase in property listing views and a 36.6 per cent increase in email inquiries submitted about listed properties between June 2018 and June 2019.

Alongside its new website, Downsizing.com.au has launched five weekly State newsletters, supported by a newsroom with interesting and insightful consumer-facing content by senior professional journalists.

This content seeks to provide advice and information to guide consumers through the many options available in retirement living and downsizing.

Downsizing.com.au has also launched a series of new client services, including sponsored content, newsletter advertising and sponsored social media boosts.

Downsizers are a huge market opportunity

A report by CBRE in May 2019, found that owner-occupiers (including downsizers) are dominating Australia’s key Sydney and Melbourne real estate markets, particularly with the withdrawal of many overseas investors.

The report found that the percentage of sales to owner-occupiers between October 2018 and March 2019 jumped from 42 per cent to 52 per cent in Sydney and 39 per cent to 53 per cent in Melbourne.

The increasing downsizer activity is not surprising.

Many older Australians are sitting on substantial wealth to fund their downsizing purchase (they have seen the value of their homes grow 412 per cent over the last 25 years alone).

CAAN: THE PONZI …

‘The majority of these homeowners are motivated by the need to find more manageable and lifestyle-rich later life properties, rather than specific market conditions.

There have never been more Australians in the downsizing age group, and the population is set to continue expanding throughout the rest of this century.

In June 2018, some 8.3 million Australians were aged 50 and over, 11 per cent more than the 7.51 million five years earlier.

According to Productivity Commission, about one in five of this huge number of over 50s will downsize at some stage during their lives.

The buyers are taking advantage of an Australian Government tax incentive, which allows downsizers to top-up their superannuation by releasing equity from the family home. In fact, since July 2018, downsizers have put $1 billion into their superannuation funds.

For more information about Downsizing.com.au, please click here.

CAAN: CAVEAT EMPTOR … BUYER BEWARE!

AUTHOR Partner 

SOURCE: https://theurbandeveloper.com/articles/introducing-downsizing-a-new-way-to-reach-australias-most-lucrative-and-active-buyers?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=171019%20NSW&utm_content=171019%20NSW+CID_cc58583621f6025a3cefc83c138e59c4&utm_source=email&utm_term=Continue%20Reading

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AVERAGE MONTHLY SERVICE FEES = RETIREMENT VILLAGES

 THIS TIME 7.30 is looking at …

-how difficult it it is to move out of retirement living

-how it is really not a purchase, but ‘a long term rental’

ONCE again the big end of town are into it up to their arm pits, the story covering a Lend Lease retirement property … run by the same people who run shopping centres with similar and familiar sharpness …

Indeed it seems the whole Build to Rent concept is yet another vehicle for a few well set-up players to make a motza from those less fortunate …

LOOKS like the developer lobby … the Property Council are already anticipating a 50 per cent increase for retirement villages …

IS this industry relying on the Public suffering from memory loss?

IT was only 2 years ago when ABC Four Corners released its Report “Bleed them Dry until they Die!’

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners/series/2017/video/NC1704H020S00#

Retirement village residents unhappy about complex contracts and fees

 Thu 20 June 2019

The aged care royal commission has uncovered some shocking stories about the treatment of older Australians.

But the housing that many older Australians depend on, retirement villages, falls outside its scope.

About 200,000 Australians live in these villages and rely on the support they provide.

But some are paying dearly to do so, signing up to complex contracts and worrying that the money they are spending now may leave them unable to afford aged care when they need it.

Judith Brand, 82, has lived at the Classic Residences Retirement Village in the Melbourne suburb of East Brighton since 2012.

After seven years, she says she is stuck in a retirement village she no longer wants to live in.

“I badly want to move out,” Ms Brand told 7.30.

Ms Brand chose a real estate agent working for the village managers, Lendlease, to run a sales campaign for her two-bedroom unit, which was initially on the market for $880,000.

But after 15 months on the market, and a seven-month period with no inspections at all, she is frustrated with Lendlease and says the stress of trying to sell her unit is having an impact on her health.

“I’m not sleeping well, because I toss and turn and think of anything more I can do to sell it,” she said.

Ms Brand said she recently had three small strokes. While her health has deteriorated, she has watched the sales agent for Lendlease sell dozens of other similar units.

“I am feeling more and more hopeless,” she said.

“I might as well be chained to my bed with a steel chain. I’m absolutely trapped.”

In a statement, Lendlease said it had sold 40 residences at the village in the past 12 months.

“Under contract, all property owners are entitled to seek the agency services of external parties and to set their own prices. Mrs Brand was aware of this, but chose to use Lendlease sales agents,” the statement said.

“Mrs Brand also set the price for her property.”

‘Silver tsunami in the Australian population’

PHOTO: Australian retirement village demographics. (ABC News)

*The Property Council’s Ben Myers said over the next 15 years the number of Australians aged over 65 would increase by 50 per cent, but they might not have access to the housing they will need.

“There’s a huge silver tsunami, if you want to put it that way, in the Australian population,” he told 7.30.

“We’re just not really thinking about housing supply, what older people are going to need in our community.”

The latest industry data from the Property Council shows there are more than 68,000 retirement units across Australia, both in villages and serviced apartments.

PHOTO: Ben Myers, executive director of the Property Council of Australia. (ABC News)

About 62 per cent of those moving in are older women. The weighted average age of those moving in to villages is 72.7 years.

Mr Myers said the current retirement housing stock would not come anywhere close to meeting future demand.

“The supply of purpose-built seniors housing in Australia is really slipping behind the growth of the population,” he said.

But there is a broader question about the fees and charges associated with retirement villages.

The monthly service fees on these properties are not cheap.

For a one-bedroom apartment, the average service fee is $500 a month, for a two-bedroom apartment it is $536 a month, and a three-bedroom apartment is $553 a month.

While the average two-bedroom unit sells for $438,000, residents are usually expected to renovate before they sell, which in some cases can cost upwards of $80,000.

PHOTO: The average service fees at Australian retirement villages. (ABC News)

On top of this and other charges, the vast majority of villages charge so-called deferred management fees when the unit is sold.

This can mean about a third of the sales price of a retirement unit is retained by the village managers.

Mr Myers said it was a fee structure that people sometimes found confusing, but he said the vast majority came to understand the model before they signed up to a retirement unit.

“The key thing is to direct people to get good advice so there is no uncertainty,” he said.

“The one financial model that has stood the test of time has been the deferred management fees.”

‘You don’t own it’

PHOTO: Economist Tim Kyng developed a website where people can compare retirement village fees. (ABC News)

Macquarie University economist Tim Kyng started looking into retirement villages after examining the accommodation options available for his 85-year-old mother.

He said retirement village residents often wrongly believed they owned their retirement unit.

“The way the contracts are worded, and the way the sales tactics work, they try to make the customer believe that they’re buying the apartment and they own it,” he said.

“The fact is, you don’t own it. It’s really a long-term rental arrangement.”

Mr Kyng decided retirement villages were not a good deal, and that the sales tactics were confusing.

“I found it was really difficult to get them to give us a copy of the contract, or to get them to give us the details of how the fee structure would work,” he said.

His experience led him to develop his own comparison website called the Retirement Village Calculator, so people could find out what the various fees and charges would mean for them.

“A lot of people are happy living in retirement villages. But the ones who are unhappy, it’s very difficult for them to exit the arrangement,” he said.

‘A few major things went wrong’

PHOTO: Former bank manager Les Scobie discovered he and other residents had been wrongly charged hundreds of thousands of dollars. (ABC News)

When Les Scobie and his wife paid just over $200,000 for their retirement unit in the Victorian town of Wangaratta, they were hoping for a quiet life.

They knew that if they decided to sell up and move on, the operators of the village would keep about a third of their money in exit fees.

“The part that we didn’t understand when we came in, was how little protection there was for you if something went wrong,” Mr Scobie said.

“And unfortunately, at this village, a few major things went wrong.”

The former bank manager discovered he and other residents had been wrongly charged a combined total of more than $300,000.

So, on behalf of hundreds of residents at the village, Mr Scobie took on the local Anglican diocese, which ran the village at the time, and won back most of the money.

Mr Scobie said retirement village residents were often vulnerable, especially when their health deteriorated and they needed to leave the village and go into aged care.

He said retirement village residents needed to make sure they were not taken advantage of.

“The industry really needs to be tipped upside down,” he said.

SOURCE:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-20/retirement-village-residents-unhappy-about-complex-contracts-fee/11224072?section=business

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THIS may appear to be a good alternative … it is all very well but …

 IS this falling into the hands of the developers, real estate agents and even some academics who are out there blaming “older Australians” for aiding and abetting our housing crisis?

VIEW:  Are Older Australians to Blame for Booming House Prices? When will the Media be able to tell the truth?

https://caanhousinginequalitywithaussieslockedout.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/1962/

And:

https://caanhousinginequalitywithaussieslockedout.wordpress.com/2018/09/12/australians-discriminated-by-scomo-govt-policies-written-to-benefit-foreign-buyers/

IS this about pushing the idea of DOWNSIZING to suit the motives of others, promoting the redevelopment of the family home for medium and high-density housing?
IS this part of the blame game to shift the focus onto others allowing the developers more scope to solve the problem for they must at all costs avoid a ‘whole of community solution’ to housing availability and affordability

AS for the TINY HOUSE idea … it is cute but imagine an older person trying to access a loft bed area?

BESIDES,  it seems it was designed to accommodate only ONE (1) PERSON, again the assumption is older Australians are ‘on their own’ maybe they are, in other ways, with others hell-bent on marginalising them, and getting their hands on their assets!

Octogenarian’s tailor-made tiny house offers a retirement home alternative

PHOTO: 82-year-old Merle lives fully independently in this tiny home, which sits on her family’s property. (Supplied)

While Australia reels from stories of malpractice in the aged care sector, perched petitely in regional Victoria is a house that could serve as an alternative model to a retirement home.

It’s Merle’s house — her tiny house, to be precise.

“I’m 82 years old and I can manage this easily, and I don’t have to depend on carers,” she says.

“I am completely independent.”

A tour inside Merle’s home

PHOTO: Merle says she loves living in her tiny home, and can easily manage its upkeep. (ABC RN: Michael Mackenzie)

Merle moved into the tiny house earlier this year, and she hasn’t looked back.

Roughly 7 by 2.5 metres in dimension, her light-filled residence sits on her family’s country property.

But Merle’s home is completely self-contained, and it’s tailor-made to suit her specific physical requirements.

It has an entrance ramp leading to the home’s veranda, assistive bathroom rails in the shower alcove and touch-open cupboard doors.

There is underfloor heating and a hydraulic bed that she can raise with the press of a button during the day — revealing a couch underneath.

All for a price tag of around $150,000.

PHOTO: Merle’s hydraulic bed can be raised with the press of a button, revealing a couch beneath it. (Supplied)

“I love the living, I love the warmth. I’m warmer here than I ever was in Queensland,” Merle says.

“There’s nothing in this home that isn’t great, and I love the half-hour of housework instead of four bedrooms.”

The house that Chris built

Chris Wenban — who isn’t of retirement age — also lives in a tiny house, next door to Merle.

She runs a tiny house construction company and, along with her business partner, built both homes.

She says she became “quite obsessed” with tiny homes for primarily environmental reasons, which eventually prompted her to move into one herself.

“I like efficiency. I like the idea of not having as big an impact on the environment and not having to spend as much money on housing,” she says.

She says there’s a common misconception that a tiny house is a just a fancy caravan.

But there are major points of difference in a tiny house.

PHOTO: The space beneath steps in Chris Wenban’s house can also double as storage. (ABC RN: Michael Mackenzie)

“The look and the feel and the sense of space is completely different,” Ms Wenban says.

“My lowest ceiling height downstairs, because I have a loft bedroom, is two metres high in the kitchen and the bathroom.”

She sleeps in a loft that’s around a metre high. Her three-metre kitchen is full-size, as is her gas oven, and a “little, secret table” can be pulled out to make an office space.

She has a composting toilet, with solids that are emptied every three months into a nearby compost bin. Nasty pathogens are then killed off over the course of a year, before the resulting fertiliser is spread onto the garden.

“Most people advise putting it on fruit trees and not on your vegetable garden, because you don’t want to have that conversation with your dinner guests,” Ms Wenban says.

Fleeing a natural disaster — with your home

Both women’s houses are in Kinglake West, facing a ridge where, nine years after the Black Saturday bushfires, lifeless trunks are a grim reminder of how many people lost their lives in the small community.

In this context, a tiny home on wheels offers benefits that extend beyond sustainability.

PHOTO: Chris says her towable tiny house is advantageous in the event of bushfires or floods. (supplied)

“We permanently have a vehicle on site that will be able to pull the tiny houses out,” Ms Wenban says.

“Because they are on wheels, you can do that.

“So, our fire plan is, essentially, if we were in a situation where we thought that there was a fire that had started nearby, we could very easily just hook them up and pull them out.”

She says tiny houses are advantageous not only in the event of bushfires, but flooding too.

Surge in older buyers of tiny homes

Ms Wenban has taken her tiny constructions to home shows and farming expos, and says she’s surprised by the demographic of potential buyers she meets there.

“I would say about 20 or 30 per cent of those people are older people, either looking for themselves for the future [or for their] elderly parents,” she says.

“Everyone wants to look after their parents but the reality of having another family member living in your own house can be quite stressful.”

Tiny houses allow older people to live independently from a main household, but close to people who can keep an eye out for them.

“For a lot of people who get older it’s not [that] they need a high degree of care or that they can’t live independently anymore,” Ms Wenban says.

PHOTO: Merle’s tiny home, which has an entrance ramp and assistive shower rails, allows her to live independently of carers.(Supplied)

Rather, “two or three small things start adding up”, she says, like needing a stair-free home, or someone to monitor medication or a proper diet.

She believes these things alone “aren’t necessarily a great reason to go into an old people’s home”.

Ms Wenban says Merle is an example of someone successfully opting for a tailored tiny home over accommodation in an institution.

“Merle’s very independent,” Ms Wenban says.

“She has a separate physical space and it’s hers and people have to knock on the door when they come in.

“She continues her lifestyle as she normally would, getting up when she wants, eating when she wants, eating what she wants, and has very much that sense of independence.

“It’s very much her home.”

Plus, says Ms Wenban, “it’s often good for your mental health when you’re around family, people who are going to check on you regularly”.

She believes we’ll see more living arrangements like Merle’s in the future.

“As councils realise that this is an alternative to people going in to old people’s homes, I think it will become more recognised, permitted and accepted,” she says.

“[A tiny house] can extend people’s ability to live independently for an extra number of years.”

SOURCE:  https://www.google.com.au/amp/amp.abc.net.au/article/10264960

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