Retirement estates offer a brilliant lifestyle for retirees and are an excellent investment. Pam Golding's discusses the demand for retirement property in South Africa and how to invest in one.
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Presenter: A warm welcome back to Win A Home on Afternoon Express, exclusively on SABC 3. Private Property has teamed up with Afternoon Express to provide you with advice on the different aspects of property on estates. Within southern Africa, South Africa has the highest proportions of all the population, with more than one in eight persons, around 5.6 million, aged between 50 and over and nearly 7%, 2.9 million, aged between 60 and above. So many of these older people are choosing to live in retirement villages, and developers are scrambling to keep up with the huge demand for this type of development. Joining us once again today is Carol Reynolds, North Durban area principal for Pam Golding Properties. Welcome back to our loft.
Carol Reynolds: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Presenter: So why is there such a demand for retirement villages?
Carol Reynolds: Well, I think it is largely to do with the aging population, but also retirement villages are bridging a gap between downscaling from your old family home and moving into a traditional old age home. What developers have done know is they have created these beautiful lifestyle security estates with extra benefits, which are the health care benefits. So people are moving into retirement villages when they're younger, and they're enjoying this beautiful, secure, amazing lifestyle, and then they've got the advantage of having the health care as and when they need it.
Presenter: Okay. Because I always had a fear. I want to retire at 50. I'm going to try and see if I can retire at 50 and put that stamp on my sort of life story. But I mean, what kind of other homes can you get? Because I always worried that retiring at 30 means I'm going to have to go live in a hospital bed.
Carol Reynolds: So they're young, trendy. They're contemporary. The architecture's beautiful. So they really are about creating lifestyle estates for the older population, and then with that you've got all the medical care and the facilities. And there're certain factors that are distinct, things like you need to have some [inaudible], so they're no stairs, and the paving and the landscaping is all crafted carefully so that people don't trip and fall easily. So all those factors are taken into account.
Presenter: Okay. So let's talk about health care because you mentioned it twice now. I think it's one of the most vital parts about this, especially because I know both of my sets of grandparents lived in retirement villages before they passed on, and one of the greatest assets that we had was the easy access to health care.
Carol Reynolds: 100%. When you buy into a retirement village, you need to research the health care facilities very carefully because some will offer frail care. Some will offer a step down facility. Some have assisted nursing. You need to decide what it is that you're looking for and then buy accordingly, and you even need to look at the detail of what the frail care comprises. Are there going to be nurses full time? Are they going to be doing chronic medication as and when needed? Doing their rounds, so as to speak, like doctors do in a hospital-- do the nurses do rounds every morning and evening? So those sort of details are very important.
Presenter: Okay. So how does it work when you're trying to buy into one of these retirement villages? Because one of my fears, obviously, is that-- I mean, are there criteria for an age gap? I don't want to have a young person living in there where I need it for my grandparents or my parents. How does that work?
Carol Reynolds: So that age has actually dropped quite a lot. You can now get into some retirement villages at the age of 50, which is lovely. So you're young, healthy, vibrant, and you can enjoy this great lifestyle. But there're also different types of ownership. So conventional ownership has full title freehold where you own the buildings and the land. And then there's sectional title ownership where there's common property that is owned by the body corporate, and you own your section of the buildings. That can be either an apartment or a little unit on its own. But what's really nice with retirement is some of them have life rights schemes, which are more affordable for retirees, but you don't actually acquire ownership of the property per se. You acquire the rights to live, use, and enjoy that property for the duration of your lifetime.
Presenter: Okay. So there are multiple ways that you can get involved in this. In terms of the hotspots, I mean, where are the hotspots in our country when it comes to retirement estates?
Carol Reynolds: Pretoria's got Waterfall Estate that's been very popular, the Winelands in Cape Town are very popular, and I'm proud to say that [inaudible] has probably been the most popular province at the moment for retirement because of its climate. So you can live in Howick, which is close to the Midlands, if you're looking for a country retirement. And then obviously you've got the coastal belt, which is very popular. You can go down the South Coast, which is affordable and that's why it's popular, and the North Coast with its convenience to the airport and all the amenities, and Umhlanga, excellent hospitals, the beautiful beaches. North Coast is becoming extremely popular for retirees.
Presenter: So I'm always about the money. I wan't to know the numbers. Is buying into a retirement estate an investment still, or is it more of an investment in like, "I just want to make sure that all these facilities are nearby"?
Carol Reynolds: To be honest, it's one of the best investments you can make. If you look at a waiting list for retirement villages, it goes on and on and on, so you will never be short of tenants. And when you're investing in property, you're looking at your rental returns and you're looking at your capital growth, and both are very good on retirement villages.
Presenter: So it pays you to retire early.
Carol Reynolds: 100% [laughter].
Presenter: Carol, thank you so much. I'm off to retire. There you have it. Retirement estates offer a brilliant lifestyle for retirees and are an excellent investment in a growing market. Now, whether you are nearing retirement age or not, there's never been a better time to enter the Win A Home grand prize competition on the Private Property website to stand a chance to win the multimillion-rand home on the Eye of Africa Estate.
All you have to do is log on to www.privateproperty.co.za and answer a very easy question. Now listen, after the break, I check in with our [designers?] to see how green their fingers are.
Enter the Win a Home competition here.
