How does the investor market judge the impact of COVID-19 on our sectors?
The easiest gauge is the share price of the remaining listed village and care operators. Here are the main players priced 28 February and 6 April – 39 days later.
The ASX 200 was down 18% to provide a comparison.
ASX 200 (benchmark) Down 18%
Stockland (diversified residential) Down 47%
Lendlease (diversified property) Down 41%
Ingenia (LLCs, rental, tourism) Down 36%
Lifestyle Communities (LLCs) Down 20%
Eureka (Rental villages) Down 22%
Japara (aged care) Down 45%
Estia (aged care) Down 29%
Regis (aged care) Down 22%
Property developers have been hit hard. Stockland is Australia’s largest home builder and has taken the biggest fall (they also have shopping centres and retail is not good).
Land lease communities have fared reasonably, delivering the ‘affordable’ retirement market. Ingenia suffers because of its tourism business.
Eureka also delivers on the affordable rental market.
Aged care has done better than expected, but it started to fall earlier so the actual drop is bigger than it first appears. Japara lost its founder and CEO, Andrew Sudholz for family health reasons, at a pivotal time in its crisis.
The message: investors are not optimistic about ‘property’ for the foreseeable future.
