SENIOR HOUSING A SUNRISE SEGMENT

Retirement housing, senior housing and homes designed for assisted living are the next major real estate trend on the horizon. Several real estate developers across the country have identified retirement/ senior citizen homes as a sun rise segment and have begun to provide residential products customised to the specific needs of the elderly in the country .

For a senior citizen projec to be a success, it needs to be developed across a large com plex; and for it to remain afford able for the end-user segment it needs to be located in the peripheral areas of cities where land is more affordable .

Senior housing in India is usually available in large-scale formats of 10 to 60 acres, mid scale formats of 4 to10 acres and 1 to4 acre small-scale pro jects; while financial models are available in sale, leasehold as well as monthly rental mod els. Typically, such housing units vary from 50 to 100 units in a project to a maximum of 400 units ; and most of these are in the 1–2 BHK formats, with unit sizes ranging between 500 sq f and 1,000 sq ft at an affordable pricing range for the retire ment community.

The key challenges for devel opers launching senior citizen housing projects in the country are mainly the affordability factor and the lack of trained manpower sensitive to and capable of handling such spe cialised projects.