Q&A with National Research Director, Floyd McMillan

An architect will tell you what you can build, we’ll tell you what you should build. That’s the ethos that drives our Research & Advisory (R&A) team. Our R&A services guide clients in crafting strategies and pricing to maximise financial returns. The end goal is to help deliver market-ready products that sell quickly and profitably.

Floyd McMillan is our National Research Director. He’s a self-confessed “genuine quantitative and qualitative dualist” with over 20 years’ experience in helping investors decide if the numbers stack up, and the overall product offering delivers against consumer expectations.

We sat down with Floyd for a quick Q&A:

Floyd, from a client’s perspective, what are the benefits of engaging with R&A?

The key benefit is to de-risk a proposed project. What any investor wants to know is that a planned development is geared to succeed prior to any dirt being broken. We help set the development up for success by answering these questions for our clients in the seniors’ living industry:

• Is there a consumer-centric focus (particularly in terms of accommodation, facilities, services and overall design)?
• Is the planned development suitable for the demographic profile of the area?
• Does the catchment have enough seniors and/or what is the growth forecast?
• What are the current (and future) supply and demand gaps for comparable product and potential competition?
• Do the numbers stack up to ensure a commercially viable project for the operator while equalling good value for the consumer?

In summary, our job is to help our clients develop highly desirable, commercially viable, and saleable seniors’ communities.

Can you tell us about the project you’re most proud of to date?

It’s hard to think of one – as there have been many! A few examples that come to mind from some of our recent work include:

• Changing a client’s masterplan to include more community spaces, repositioning community facilities, or optimising the proposed accommodation mix in terms of size, style, or design.
• Tailoring a development to incorporate the specific needs and wants of the local demographic.
• Helping clients identify specific regions/catchment areas where we believe an excellent opportunity exists for a new seniors’ development.
• Nailing the pricing for the client, in terms of ingoing contribution, ongoing and exit fees.

Tell us a bit about a fun fact or pattern you’ve noticed in the seniors’ living industry that others may not be aware of?

Seniors are looking to downsize, not downgrade.

The growing hassle of household maintenance is known to be a key driver for seniors to look to ‘downsize’ to a retirement living community. However, we’re seeing that for most seniors, downsizing particularly means less outdoor area to maintain. It doesn’t necessarily mean they want to downsize into tiny one-bed apartments!

Despite this, we’re still seeing operators get the product mix wrong due to lack of deep understanding of the market. This results in residual stock that is challenging to sell due to a lack of market depth for that type. Every suburb is unique, and we strongly encourage operators to consider this before committing to a design that is difficult to change once approved.

Floyd and his team can help you with deep market insights to take your seniors’ living project to the next level. Learn more about our Research & Advisory capabilities.