Retirement Living industry in Malaysia (Part 1)

RVs have high potential for mid term and long term rentals.

Ever since the 1980s, different groups and individuals have wanted to establish lifestyle retirement villages (RV) in Malaysia. This was yet not an industry back then, neither is it very much now, but it was certainly a foreseeable and felt gap in the country. The Sunrise group was one of the firsts to put their money where their thought was in the 90s and created one such property. They should be lauded for doing that even though in hindsight, the market was not ready to 'retire' in a village. Perhaps back then, the ownership model was not evolved yet.
Today, many RVs are based on the life-lease model. Many people in Malaysia cannot fathom this model. Living in an RV is clearly not about property investment, many must clearly understand. A Retirement Village is also neither a holiday resort nor a hotel. And most importantly to know, a Retirement Village is NOT a nursing home nor an aged care facility.

Are property developers ready?
After being an understudy since 2009 on this subject matter, I can add that this may not be the most accurate question to be asked. It takes more than property developers to create an RV. Are operators in place? Is the marketplace ready? Are city planners and local authorities ready? Is the immigration authority ready to provide better visa arrangements (not just MM2H) for potential RV residents from overseas. Long stay visas? They all have to work in tandem on their own course but with the same objective to facilitate this industry to activate and blossom.
The good word is, much progress has been made in recent years and now. And Malaysia is more than ready to let this new business grow. I term this as business because this can only happen as a self sustaining business model. It costs a lot of money to create and operate a successful Retirement Village. But yes, you can share-buy a plot of land with friends and call it such. But will you have 24-hour concierge, community manager, shuttle bus, activities, dance classes, art, movie hall, friends and so on?

The recently launched - a completed livable GreenAcres Retirement Village in Ipoh is the best thing to happen for the industry in Malaysia. I will derive more in my next posting. If I can only choose one keyword to describe the owners at Total Investment Group, it is INTEGRITY ~ Doing what is right even when no one is looking. I have been totally fortunate to have started on my own learning journey with them since 2010, understudying with their Australian consultant. GreenAcres has set the benchmark for the region, in terms of attention to detail, passion, care and investment.

More in the next postings about GreenAcres RV, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia.

Other areas I hope to share and enlighten about:
> Other groups progressing on the retired lifestyle industry.
> The intrinsic design of Retirement Villages.
> Why lease and not outright sale?
> What about aged care?
> What is ageing in place?
> Where is a good place to build an RV?
> There are so much learnings to be had from Australia. Even bad case studies.
> The legacy business.