Welcome to our two-part White Paper series that focuses on the $134 Billion Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate industry that global and elite luxury developers are pivoting their attention to. This series will define what exactly is Wellness Real Estate, the pitfalls most novice developers make, and how to market this concept to their buyers.
Why Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate?
Covid-19 pushed businesses and individuals to make a conscious effort in incorporating health and wellness into their business plans. This urgency was largely fueled by consumers recognising their own mortality. But even before the unprecedented arrival of Covid-19, conscious consumers were already creating value within this niche, with the global wellness industry being valued at $4.2 trillion in 2017, welcomed by a 12.8% growth from $3.7 trillion in 2015.
With the environment and community influencing up to 90% of their health outcomes, consumers are also acknowledging the need to invest in residential spaces where health and wellness are at the heart of the concepts, design, construction, and development.
In its 2018 Build Well to Live Well Report, the Global Wellness Institute (GWI) revealed the following statistics about the strong demand of Australians for wellness-centric residential spaces:
- 45% prefer homes close to a local park
- 50% wants access to paved walking paths
- 70% wants walking distance to public transport
- 64% wants walking distance to local services
The same report revealed that Australian Baby Boomers, who most have retired by 2025 and have therefore become the target market of property developers, want to join a diversified and multigenerational neighbourhood, which is a key trend of Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate. Meanwhile, millennials who are credited for the growth of the wellness industry because of their love for meditation, yoga, and boutique fitness now constitute 42% of the Australian workforce.
With the accelerated effects of Covid-19, the demand to live in a healthier-built environment will naturally accelerate. Investing in Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate will not just become an option but a norm.
While Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate will require more money as compared to traditional real estate because of the higher costs to develop wellness-focused properties, research shows that many don’t mind paying a premium. GWI revealed that wellness developments that cater to the middle to the upper ends of the market are achieving home sales price premiums averaging 10-25% and can even go up to 55%. Indeed, more and more people are treating investing in healthier-built homes as important as obtaining medical treatment.
These are the demands that will drive the future of the global real estate industry and the kind of buyers that property developers need to accommodate. The million-dollar question is…
Are you ready for this necessary evolution and willing to educate yourself about Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate now in exchange for a thriving and profitable future?
Although green buildings have increasingly become appealing, the concept of wellness in real estate only came in the late 2000s. While the former focuses on environmental sustainability, the latter focuses on helping residents attain a sustainable lifestyle. So, while Australia bears the hallmark of a nation that should readily embrace Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate, this concept is still in its infancy and often largely confused with the simple installation of a pool, gym, or sauna.
Nevertheless, the growing popularity of Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate is undeniable. In 2017, Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate was already a $134 billion industry, growing by 6.4 percent annually since 2015 and projected to grow into $198 billion in 2022. Australia ranked third in the top ten countries in terms of market size with $9.5 billion. The pioneering project in Melbourne called Nightingale demonstrates the budding prominence of Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate across the nation.
(Authors note: Elite Digital Campaigns worked with Nightingale)
There are over 740 Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate projects across 34 countries in the pipeline. Australia is the second country with the most projects with 189. These figures reinforce the undeniable truth that wellness is the future of real estate even before the pandemic and more so post-pandemic.
As more people, initially through necessity embrace the concept of living, working, and playing in one place, Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate will continue to expand, and it really should. If the Hotel Industry focuses on wellness even when people are only spending a few days or nights, then why shouldn’t residential real estate when people spend most of their lives in their homes.
Soon enough, buyers will demand more transparency on the efforts of developers to incorporate wellness. The future will see property developers discussing metrics that track light, noise, building ventilation, air filtration, and cleaning. As a result, property developers can only improve in terms of building a wellness-centric home as they are now armed with data to make informed decisions.
And what do all these external data tell you?
You simply cannot ignore Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate.
Part Two will address concepts around wellness lifestyle real estate and how property developers can outclass, outsell, and outperform your competitors.
Wellness
Let’s start with the queen concept of all: wellness. GWI defines wellness as “the active pursuit of activities, choices, and lifestyles that lead to holistic health”. The definition implies two distinct characteristics of wellness that differentiates it from health, wellbeing, and happiness, which are often used as interchangeable terms.
First, wellness is not passive nor static but an “active pursuit”, which means that it will only be possible if an individual chooses to engage in activities that will help him achieve wellness in all its dimensions. It is not a state of being like being happy, well, or in good health condition. As a property developer, while you cannot control participation, you can control creating attractive and inviting opportunities that encourage engagement.
Second, wellness is multi-dimensional and holistic. Other than physical, it also involves emotional, mental, spiritual, social, and environmental, recognising that while wellness is a self-responsibility, the physical, social, and cultural aspects of the environment we live in bear an impact on it as well.
Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate
GWI defines Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate as “homes that are proactively designed and built to support the holistic health of their residents.”
While advancements in engineering, architecture, science, and technology opened several avenues for comfort, convenience, and pleasure, we cannot deny that they have promoted sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise, poor diet, stress, social isolation, and environmental degradation. All of which poses new health risks and makes people live unhealthy and unhappy lives.
So, how do we address this issue?
Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate is the key.
The blooming industry holds strong potential in addressing the current health challenges of our modern living environment as it places health and wellness at the forefront of the conception, design, construction, and development of homes and neighborhoods.
While it is a budding industry, the concepts behind Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate are not new. Property developers can use, incorporate, or adopt concepts from historical and current movements such as the green or sustainable building movement, New Urbanism, and design-driven movement to build wellness-focused residential projects.
How to incorporate and market wellness in your next project
To nurture buyer connection, property developers need to implement design and marketing principles below:
Emphasise that you are building homes that promote wellbeing. Property developers need to highlight how they are protecting their residents from harmful outdoor and indoor elements. Demonstrating key designs on how they can help residents improve sleep, mood, and vitality. Some of the other desirable marketing concepts can be achieved by educating buyers on how you have:
- Filtered contaminants in the air and pollution
- Specific building materials that have neutral carbon output
- Sound and light-proofing
- Maximizing natural light
- Increasing exposure to nature
- Using circadian lighting
- Monitor and optimize indoor air quality
How you encourage mobility within the complex and surrounding environment. As mentioned, wellness is an active pursuit, hence it is a self-responsibility. Residents do not achieve wellness just because you supplied them with purified air and filtered water. You need to create opportunities that will support them in attaining holistic health and achieving wellness in all its dimensions. For example, highlighting how being adjacent to a beautiful park can encourage walking, exercising, socialising with neighbours, and keeping a pet.
Implementing brave policies to create community. The building design is not enough to foster a wellness community. You also need to implement “soft approaches”, which may include policies like no-smoking and recycling, programs like fitness classes and family events, communication efforts like a community portal, and a wellness director that supervises the community.
Create awareness that wellness is something bigger than ourselves. Shifting the perspective of residents from thinking that wellness is all about themselves to thinking that it is intrinsically linked to others is the most important factor in creating the connection between Wellness Lifestyle Real Estate and Wellness Community. As property developers, you need to incorporate elements in planning and design that will address the non-individualistic dimensions of wellness which include environmental, social, and economic.
I said it once and I will say it again, being luxury is no longer enough.
Other recent articles:
Ten SMS templates we use to generate sales appointments immediately
Is commercial real estate becoming toxic?
How to sell property to the Chinese after COVID-19
How Asian property developers are raising the bar
Why SMS Marketing is worth millions and you’re missing out
What $246 million in sales has taught this real estate agent
