Following on from last week’s discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on the retirement village market, our analyst has just supplied this trend graph above for Australia.
It shows the past 90 days and the search for the key words ‘retirement villages’; it reveals a consistent 50% drop for the month of March.
For our own search and education directory, villages.com.au, we have partially recovered in the first two weeks of April, now up to 15,000 searches a week but still below the norm of 22,000 searches.
Given that most village operators achieve 60% of the financial year’s sales in the January to June period, FY20 is not looking good on the surface.
However, with over 3,000 people searching on villages.com.au for options in seniors accommodation as a result of a life changing event each week, and just 63 village homes coming available each day (M-F), strong sales is achievable with the right value proposition.
This is a ‘back to basics’ marketing and sales challenge and opportunity, with an emphasis on security and community. It can be done.
