■  Our ageing society presents massive challenges for the country in years ahead but the retirement housing sector should be well placed to turn these into opportunities. Older people are sitting on over £1trn of housing equity and over half are living in homes larger than they necessarily require. However, unlocking this equity and these homes will depend on our ability to build homes that older people want and can afford to move into.

■  The existing market has been heavily focused on ‘needs’ based movers with bereavements, health or safety issues driving demand. In recent years we have seen increasing activity from private equity backed developers targeting the aspirational market. This has enabled some developers to achieve premiums above the local market and faster sales rates (including more off-plan). The demand for these aspirational products looks set to continue growing.

■  We forecast the market needs to build around 11,000 – 18,000 retirement homes per year just to maintain existing provision rates amongst older people. Analysis of the current supply pipeline suggests that delivery looks set to be at the lower end of that range, which is an improvement on recent levels (7,000 per year). However, evidence from the US, Australia and New Zealand suggest that there is substantial room for growth in the provision of older people’s housing. Increasing the provision of housing to those levels would require an additional 60,000 homes per year.

■  The ability to increase delivery to these higher levels will require substantial innovation across the sector. Developers and operators need to offer products and services that encourage older people to move. But they also need to deliver homes across a spectrum of prices and affordability. Creating a product that works for someone currently living in the average priced home (the £250,000 challenge) will be essential to its expansion. However, this will involve further financial innovation across a range of tenures and the result of the Law Commission’s review into exit fees will play a large role in deciding the future shape of the sector.

■  Meanwhile, local authorities will come under renewed pressure to house those most in need at a time of further public sector spending cuts and increases to the minimum wage. Some are already looking to use their existing land holdings and partner with housing associations or private companies in order to meet their obligations.