March 14, 2019 | Te Ara Institute

If your village operator is a member of LASA (Leading Age Services Australia), the Retirement Living Council or the Property Council, you will be looking to implement the new retirement village Code of Conduct between now and December.

The Code of Conduct is a 30-page document that outlines how each village intends to conduct itself with residents. If you would like a copy, click HERE.

The Code is voluntary but there is a big push coming for every operator to take it up. Ask your boss!

Village management has until December to implement the Code. From January the requirements must be operating and each village accountable.

‘Severe’ breaches of the Code will result in the village being ‘sanctioned’ – named and shamed on the industry website.

From the picture at the top, you can see that ‘training’ has to be seen to be provided to you, and for it to be real and relevant training.

Have you got training in your 2020 budget? Have you discussed with your operator who will pay for training? How much should you allocate?

A tip. A KPMG focus group of operators all said the operator should pay and nominated $2,500-$3,000 for two days training, as a start.

This is an investment in your village, the success of the Code of Conduct, and of course yourself.

Our VILLAGE SUMMIT has been built around the Code of Conduct and the new accreditation system. (More about accreditation next newsletter).

Learn more about the VILLAGE SUMMIT HERE.

As a Retirement Village Manager, you will be thinking about your career prospects going forward.

The good news, despite the media and reactive governments, is that experienced and new village operators are committing really big funds to acquire and build new villages.

A couple of examples to demonstrate this really positive trend:

Glen Brown, a 50-ish veteran village operator based in Brisbane who helped build RetireAustralia from scratch, has bet his future on his new village group called Reside. He has got the capital together to build 1,500 retirement village homes over the next six to eight years – that’s worth $600 million. (Glen and his team pictured).
Paul Browne, a 60-ish veteran village operator who built and sold Freedom to Aveo, has created LDK Healthcare and is building 400 village homes in Canberra and just bought The Landings in Sydney (around 230 homes) for about $60 million.
Phil Usher, a 55-ish veteran village operator who created Tall Trees Villages, is having another go, just announcing his Odyssey Village group. The first development will be $50 million.
Steller Developments in Melbourne, a big residential developer, has just committed $430 million to build four villages in one go on the Mornington Peninsula, their first ever.

And there are quite a few other private people putting real money up.

At the same time not-for-profit village operators are expanding aggressively.

The message: retirement villages are growing, which means the demand for experienced, professional retirement village managers is growing too. Good news.