Retirement villages use waiting lists to keep track of potential residents wanting to buy in. Here’s what to expect.
At the time of writing, retirement villages across the country are full: The housing crisis in Australia has even impacted the small retirement living segment of the market. When retirement villages are full, village operators will set up and maintain a waiting list to keep track of all the people interested in moving into the village.
Waiting lists are not covered by any of the state or territory legislations, so village operators are free to manage the lists in any way they wish. Some operators will record your data on sophisticated customer management systems like Salesforce or Hubspot, while others will use an excel spreadsheet or post-it notes (I kid you not!).
The waiting list usually involves recording your name, age and contact details, as well as the type of unit you are interested in purchasing (ie, how many bedrooms, perspective, yard, etc). A good practice for staff is to only add someone once they have visited the village for a site tour, and/or have met the sales or village manager.
Larger retirement village operators may use a dedicated sales manager, while smaller villages and operators will use the village manager to do both sales and village management. Even if a dedicated sales manager is used by the operator, your entry to the village will need to be approved by the village manager following an interview.
Village operators may have a formal wait list policy, however the list will be manipulated by the sales or village manager, depending on their preferences. It definitely pays to “bond” with the sales staff (whether village manager or sales manager), as they have a lot of power to preference or delay your entry into the village. If they don’t like you, your chances of buying into the village are very slim. In the current environment where retirement villages are full, sales staff have the opportunity to choose who they want to bring into the village, rather than accepting the first buyer with a pulse and a bank-cheque.
You won’t have visibility over the waiting list and will have to accept at face value what staff are telling you in relation to where you rank on that list.
Ask sales staff how the waiting list works:
- Is it first-come, first-served?
- Is preference given to older or younger buyers?
- Is preference given to cash buyers?
Some operators simply keep your name on a list and when there is a vacancy, they run a couple of open homes and ask for expressions of interest. They will then select the offer that best suits their needs at the time.
Retirement villages are under no obligation to share the reason you were not selected or missed out on buying the unit. Sometimes it can simply be that you wouldn’t fit with the current culture of the village.
The last word
If you want to put yourself in the best position on the waiting list, here are my top tips:
- Be nice to the sales staff. If you are rude or demanding during the sale process it will raise red flags with the staff. No-one wants to bring in a resident who is going to be a pain in the arse for the next ten years.
- Express interest in the community events and using the facilities. Villages really don’t want to bring in residents who will not participate in community life.
- Be a cash buyer. This means having cash to buy the unit and not requiring a purchase contract subject to selling your home.
- Follow-up on a regular basis, say monthly. This keeps you front-of-mind and best-placed if someone has just terminated their lease, as it saves staff from having to sort through the wait list.
- If you need to ask some harder questions, like the deeper information and negotiating tactics noted in my ebook, it is likely that sales staff won’t be able to answer and will have to escalate the query. Do this nicely and allow the sales staff to save face and not feel like you are intimidating or going over their heads.