Aussie retirees in search of affordable homes turning to trailer parks

Sydney

JOHN Purnell, 75, and his wife Patricia, 72, moved into a factory-built house in a converted trailer park west of Sydney this year, eschewing traditional retirement communities and other homes in the area.

"Retirement villages are quite expensive," Patricia, a former payroll clerk at a seniors facility, said in an interview in their A$254,000 (S$281,500) 160-square-metre air-conditioned home, which features built-in wardrobes, a separate laundry cupboard and a carport. Nearby houses had minimum price tags of about A$350,000 and needed a further A$50,000 of work, she said.

Australia's expanding ranks of retirees, faced with declining affordability of housing and inadequate savings, are set to boost demand for cheaper manufactured homes by as much as 41 per cent, according to Colliers International UK Plc. Investors are responding to the growth of the nascent market, with companies including Ingenia Communities Group and Alceon Group Pty, headed by former JPMorgan Chase & Co banker Trevor Loewensohn, acquiring existing h…