Retirement Living Faced with ‘Monstrous Undersupply’

Market entrant UrbanLife broke ground on its first vertical retirement living development in inner-city Melbourne this year, providing much-needed community retirement living.

With figures predicting that there will be 9.5 million people over the age of 65 making up 21-23 per cent of the total population by 2066, there will be a huge new market to service.

But currently, there is a “monstrous undersupply” of suitable housing for retirees, according to UrbanLife co-founder Dale Harrison. 

“We’re not feeling it just now but there is a tsunami coming,” Harrison warned. 

UrbanLife was a relatively new entrant to the retirement-living market but the opportunities were plenty, said co-founder and chief operations officer Charissa Harrison, a speaker at The Urban Developer Aged Care and Retirement Living vSummit on March 23.

“There is so much room for so many more operators but not enough newcomers because it takes so long to get right sites, through the planning and the council application,” Harrison said. 

“We’ve gone from standard property developer to retirement living development and we’ve been working on it since 2016, so it’s a long process to launch our first development.

“You have to have a whole new set of skills in addition to being a developer.” 

UrbanLife spent years researching its target demographic before embarking on its first projects, including its 227-apartment site at Footscray, as well as its $105-million Altona North site, plans for which were lodged earlier this year.

“One of key things we found through behavioural economics studies and all the research we did was that when family came to visit, they wanted to take them out of the retirement village because there was nothing to do there,” Dale Harrison said. 

“We want to activate these communities like they are doing in the United States and what was happening with pre-pandemic commercial centres—everyone connecting through food, bars, meeting places.” 

▲ UrbanLife and other retirement developers have taken cues from the high-end residential and BtR sectors.

Charissa Harrison said that baby boomers were wanting something different from their retirement communities and it was the obligation of developers to deliver. 

“When we decided to go down the retirement pathway, one of the most important things for us was having the sites in inner urban locations,” she said.

“People thinking about retiring don’t want to move away from family and friends, so finding those inner-city locations is important.” 

Amenities, such as those in the evolving high-end residential and build-to-rent sectors which are influencing the retirement, are becoming a key differentiator.

“We wanted 1.5 acres (0.6ha) or more where we could scale a campus-style retirement village  and offer all the amenities you would expect in the suburbs. But finding the site was the key issue.

“Footscray is walking distance from everything, including a major hospital which is only a five-minute walk away.

“At Footscray you go downstairs and have 3200sq m of commercial and retail in a precinct space, as well as a shopping centre, fresh food market Little Saigon, surrounded by restaurants and cafes.

“It has been voted one of the coolest suburbs in the world by Time Out and various other magazines, it’s a global cultural and culinary hotspot, and people that are retiring deserve that.”

The Urban Developer Aged Care and Retirement Living vSummit will take place on Thursday, March 23. Click here to register.