The top 10 village markets in Australia – we identify where the retirement village potential customers are

Wondering where is the best place to have a retirement village? The answer is Sydney. Utilizing Google Analytics we requested the Top 10 search locations between 13 January and 12 February [a slow period] on our website, villages.com.au, with the following results:
1. Sydney 14,892 37%
2. Melbourne 8,754 22%
3. Brisbane 7,879 20%
4. Adelaide 3,866 10%
5. Perth 2,838 7%
6. Canberra 785 2%
7. Richmond 302 0.7%
8. Cranbourne 294 0.7%
9. Gold Coast 280 0.7%
10. Hobart 272 0.7%
Total 40,252 100%
What does this tell us? Well first up, the number of people searching for a retirement village solution, seasonally adjusted, is still an average of 2000+ people per day on villages.com.au – so that in mind/interest is still significant.
This needs to be balanced with the fact that 67% a new searches, meaning 33% are returning to find more information. [Google identifies a return search as being somebody revisiting the site within the past two years]. This is a very good result because it shows a strong interest in the concept of villages over a longer period of time.
With average ILU sales of just 33 nationally, this means less than 2% of shoppers are buying.
The demand in Sydney is obviously significant – something for marketers and salespeople to reflect on it they are not achieving targets.
The big worry is the Gold Coast given the concentration of stock [including resort parks]. The Sunshine Coast with its quantity of stock does not even rate in the Top 10. This can explain the large number of long-term vacant ILUs up there.
But there is good news – see next story