The country’s largest retirement village operator achieved 904 resales across its 13,001 established village homes portfolio, or 6.9% of its portfolio. It is now approaching the sales rates pre-Four Corners, the disastrous June 2017 ABC investigated reporting program into the retirement village sector.
They describe their result as ‘returns recovering’, no doubt assisted by the COVID-19 impact on isolation and loss of community for retirees.
With an average occupancy of 11 years, the group needs to achieve sales of around 7.8% to clear new vacancies each year.
(An interesting sidenote is the criticism in the Four Corners program, and carried on by Kathryn Greiner in her NSW Government report on the village sector, that village operators have a strategy to churn residents through villages with shorter occupancy periods – Lendlease has maintained 11 years for the past decade).
The group also delivered a strong development result – 160 new home sales, up 54% on FY20 and with an average sale value of $690,000 per village home.
They have a development pipeline of 2,354 home sites still available, valued at $1.4 billion.
In February, Lendlease sold another 25% of the business to Aware Super while retaining overall management rights. They now value their holding of 50% at $900 million.
