Retirement villages in Australia: Evolution, prospects, challenges

George Earl, Bond University

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Interim status: Citation only.

Earl, G. (2004). Retirement villages in Australia: Evolution, prospects, challenges. Paper presented at the Tenth Pacific Rim Real Estate Society (PRRES) conference, Bankgkok, Thailand. Access the conference website.

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Abstract

This paper is about the evolution, prospects and challenges that face the retirement village industry and the boarder issues of housing the aged in Australia.

As a starting point the paper provides a summary of a recently completed ARC research project (by the author) into the status of the Australian retirement village industry and its residents, where the major push/pull factors associated with residents choosing the live in a retirement village are identified. Additionally the paper reviews what attributes provide ongoing satisfaction or dissatisfaction associated with retirement village living and finally levels of affordability.

Finally, the paper put forward a number of potential policy, investment and asset management proposals to enable a more efficient delivery of affordable housing for the aged, which include:

* How to attract sufficient funding to provide the required housing stock for older Australians in the rental sector
* How to reduce the costs to occupy this housing
* How to provide housing stock in the total range of locations within Australia
* How ensure this housing has a total useful life similar to other housing types and tenure