MUNICH - Property investors are being urged to consider the ageing population in future residential developments. With an ever increasing proportion of elderly people in society, it is feared that existing care facilities will soon no longer be able to cope with demand. Speaking at the Expo Real trade fair on Tuesday, Munich city council's head of planning, Dr Christiane Thalgott, said developers needed to think creatively about ways of planning care facilities into new residential projects. 'It is my plea to investors that they think about this,' she said. 'The elderly are, as yet, a group of people who are rarely considered by the market, but this is going to change.'
MUNICH - Property investors are being urged to consider the ageing population in future residential developments. With an ever increasing proportion of elderly people in society, it is feared that existing care facilities will soon no longer be able to cope with demand. Speaking at the Expo Real trade fair on Tuesday, Munich city council's head of planning, Dr Christiane Thalgott, said developers needed to think creatively about ways of planning care facilities into new residential projects. 'It is my plea to investors that they think about this,' she said. 'The elderly are, as yet, a group of people who are rarely considered by the market, but this is going to change.'
Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said she could imagine a situation where elderly people rented individual flats with care facilities on 24-hour call. 'Care homes in the traditional sense are often a last option,' she said. 'People want to retain as much of their independence as possible and they often don’t really want to move out of the city. Individual units, perhaps among other normal flats, could be an interesting prospect.' She claimed that an increasing amount of money being pumped into property, particularly in the UK, was leading investors to look for alternative ways to spend their money. 'The elderly may be a small segment at the moment, but I’m sure that this desire for diversification will change that,' said Peace.