Does anyone have experience with Active Adult or 55+ properties?
I am currently working on an active adult/55+ multifamily project. I know it’s a bit of a new asset type and a lot of people I’ve talked to seem to be uncomfortable with it. I’m very comfortable in the world of senior living so we’re branching out into this quasi senior living/multifamily. Anyone here working on these assets and if so, I’d love to connect to share experiences. 

I think this will be an amazingly lucrative asset class for underserved market if executed well.
[{"id": "g77ywln", "text": "Is this an age restricted community? Is it subsidized? I am a developer that works on LIHTC/HTC for low income/seniors", "replies": [{"id": "g79t0z3", "text": "It\u2019s market rate unsubsidized. It\u2019s essentially an age restricted apartment building with nicer amenities. Not as expensive as independent living but not as cheap as the apartment building next door sort of thing. \n\nI haven\u2019t actually done any LIH. The only tax credits I have experience with is WFHTC. What differs from the LIH senior living compared to a market rate or IL facility?", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "g780pla", "text": "Check occupancy, demographics of the area, competition, and of course opex,capex, staffing, et al. Really no different than Multifam other than you have more support staff, possible some additional regulations to adhere to, programming for residents and such.", "replies": [{"id": "g78jkfk", "text": "Larger amenities spaces too", "replies": [{"id": "g79t95j", "text": "The amount of amenity space we have programmed in right now feels like a lot. Makes it a harder pro forma to work just because the build cost is so high.", "replies": [{"id": "g7ah2k8", "text": "I don\u2019t doubt that at all given the construction costs. The efficiency of these buildings has to be very low. What is your expectation, or what kind of guidance are you giving your architect given you\u2019re in SD? And you know your GC is going to revise their budget up once SDs are done.\n\nWhat are residents paying for, or are you doing bill backs? How did you set rents?", "replies": [{"id": "g7ea4s4", "text": "Luckily for us we are also the GC so we work hand in hand with estimating these projects. Right now we are literally going off of $/sf from previous projects but we already upped that number by $3MM per our GC\u2019s advice. I just reached out to an estimator yesterday to get them on board after SD. We only have a very basic site layout and floor plan right now. \n\nWe are doing all of the above on revenue. We did get a market study but that wasn\u2019t an insane amount of help. We have one comp near us that we are basing a lot of our assumptions off of. It\u2019s the typical kept revising the pro forma until a bank feels comfortable enough to give us terms.", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "g79t7aw", "text": "We are in schematic design at this moment. Have you done these assets before? I\u2019ve been told by a few brokers upfront that they find them risky because of the sale. Is it multifamily or is it senior living. \nI usually develop multifamily/mixed use so I\u2019m fairly excited to see how this asset type plays out over the next few years.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "g78a0nm", "text": "I think that as long as we are not talking about any type of licensing requirement such as the one that you will require State licensing, this is pretty much a multifamily property. So you look at it just like that.  \n\nThe only outside risk here is that with residents 55+, the possibility of COVID affecting your tenants and resulting in bad outcomes has to be taken into consideration specially if we are talking multiple stories with elevator service. I can see additional expenses just taking care of the common areas if that is the case.", "replies": [{"id": "g79tyj8", "text": "We are slightly designing for Covid but not going very overboard with it. Construction won\u2019t be complete for another two years so very much so hoping Covid isn\u2019t as much of a factor by that time. \n\nWe are treating it similarly to multifamily. Just much more expensive to build so we are trying to make sure we don\u2019t blow our model out of the water. It is nice to do a multifamily that has a much higher sales price though.", "replies": [{"id": "g7b80ho", "text": "What are some of the items that make it more expensive to build than typical multi family?", "replies": [{"id": "g7e9idw", "text": "Higher level of finishes, more amenity spaces, adding an extra elevator, parking is a requirement for this demographic, might add in a pool or a full commercial kitchen especially if you might sell as an IL asset later down the road.", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]