Richard Andrews - Dont Buy Your Retirement Home Without Me!: Avoid the Traps and Get the Best Deal When Buying a Home in a Retirement Community

DONT BUY YOUR RETIREMENT HOME WITHOUT ME!

Avoid the traps and get the best deal when buying a home in a retirement community

RICHARD ANDREWS

About the author

Richard Andrews is a property investment professional who has spent much of his career in senior roles in the property funds management industry. In 2009, Richard started the company Find My Retirement Home to provide specialist advice and buyers agency services to retirees looking to purchase a retirement home. Richard also provides training and accreditation to professional advisers, such as accountants, solicitors and financial planners, so they can give advice to their own clients around retirement home transactions.

Richard is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon. He has a Bachelor of Business (Hotel Management) and a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment.

Introduction

Hi there! Thanks for purchasing Dont Buy Your Retirement Home Without Me! the book that retirement village sales agents dont want you to see! It is full of insider information and tips to help you find the right retirement home and then negotiate the best deal possible.

It seems like everyone I meet these days has a horror story of a friend or relative being ripped off by a retirement village somewhere. This is mainly due to the complexity of retirement home purchase contracts, and the hidden fees and charges that create many traps for the unwary buyer. The retirement industry itself has moved from a largely not-for-profit operating base to a fully fledged property sector, now dominated by investment banks and property developers, who are keen to make a quick buck to be made from our ageing population. Never has the need been greater for quality, independent advice and information on buying a retirement home for some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

It was for this purpose that I founded Find My Retirement Home, a company that provides independent advice and buyers agency services to retirees looking to purchase a retirement home. My mission is to help you get the best deal possible on your retirement home purchase.

This book is part of my commitment to inform buyers about retirement home transactions. It is designed to guide you through the whole purchase process, from the decision to downsize out of your existing home to settling into your new retirement community.

But first, let me to tell you how this all came about

The Find My Retirement Home story

In 2008 I was working as investment manager for a boutique listed property fund manager performing mergers and acquisitions. One of the main projects I was tasked to deliver was a $400 million luxury retirement-living development fund that consisted of six development sites and one operating retirement village in Australia and New Zealand. We hoped to attract institutional investors, such as superannuation funds, to invest in the development and then own and operate the assets.

I had not worked in the retirement living sector before but had extensive experience in the hotel and commercial property sector working for institutional property owners. I thought my hotel accommodation background would be easily transferable to the retirement living sector how wrong I was!

For nine months I led a team that researched the sector, analysed the properties and modelled the financial performance of the seven retirement villages and the fund itself. I was stunned by the complexities of the contract and financial arrangements that the purchasers of retirement homes were obliged to understand and sign off on. Village owners had clearly spent much time and money obtaining professional advice on how to structure these agreements to keep within the retirement villages legislation regime while maximising their own profits. If it took my crack team nine months to figure it all out, how were people without our skills and training meant to do it?

As it turned out, we were unable to get the fund established before the global financial crisis hit the markets and institutions decided that their cash was better off in the bank than invested in risky property developments. Despite this setback, however, I now knew how retirement home purchase contracts worked and had become fascinated by the sector.

About a year later I had left the company and was working for myself, consulting to various organisations in the hotel and retirement property sectors. While doing research for a retirement village client, it struck me that there was no-one in the retirement sector giving impartial and independent advice or assistance to people wanting to buy a retirement home. Sure, there were lawyers around who could provide legal advice on the contracts, and financial planners who could probably tell you how much you could afford to spend, but there was no-one who could give retirement home buyers sound commercial and property advice about their purchase.

This led to the idea for starting my company Find My Retirement Home (my mum came up with the name thanks Mum!), which was officially launched shortly thereafter.

Our mission is quite simply to help you get the best deal possible on your retirement home purchase.