Investing in Age: Unlocking Value in the Later Living Sector with Henry Lumby

In this insightful episode of Bricks & More, Adrian Strittmatter sits down with Henry Lumby, Chief Commercial Officer at Auriens, to explore one of real estate’s most untapped frontiers: later living.

As populations age and expectations evolve, Henry argues that the UK’s senior living market is lagging far behind its peers – not because of lack of demand, but because of outdated models and limited imagination. 

He makes a compelling case for treating later living not as care, but as lifestyle infrastructure – blending hospitality, wellness, and community to unlock long-term social and investor value.

Key talking points:

🏡 Why later living could outscale both build-to-rent and student housing combined

💰 How the right incentives and regulation could unleash private investment and societal benefits

🌍 What the UK can learn from New Zealand and Australia’s mature retirement village models

🧠 Why “care” needs a rebrand — from reputational risk to value driver

💬 How Auriens built “the gold standard” in senior living by focusing on hospitality, wellbeing, and belonging

If you think later living is just about care homes, this episode will reshape how you see one of real estate’s most powerful opportunities for impact and value.

Henry’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-morris/
Auriens: https://www.auriens.com/

Adrian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianstrittmatter 
Saentys: https://saentys.com/

Transcript

Adrian Strittmatter: 0:52

Today we're zooming in on one of the biggest opportunities and challenges in real estate. I'm talking about later living demographic shifts. Social expectations and health needs are creating unprecedented demand for high quality senior living. Yet the UK market still lags behind international peers in both scale and innovation. So how do you create places that don't just provide care, but deliver lifestyle, wellness, and long-term value for both residents and stakeholders? And how can this asset class truly unlock returns for investors while genuinely transforming lives? As such, I am thrilled to welcome Henry Lumby, Chief Commercial Officer at Auriens. A later living care and real estate specialist, Henry has led groundbreaking projects across the sector from co-founding Allegra Care and driving Amil Keller's development strategy to heading retirement living at Savills. At Auriens he's helping redefine what later living can be. Blending hospitality, healthcare and community into one of the UK's most ambitious and high profile models. Henry brings a rare mix of advisory, operational, and development expertise to the conversation, and a clear vision for how later living can unlock long-term value for both investors and more importantly residents. So let's dive straight in. Henry, welcome to the show.

Henry Lumby: 2:15

Thank you so much for having me.

Adrian Strittmatter: 2:17

We'll start off with a, with a couple of sort of personal questions. Don't worry, not too personal. Um, your sort of career has spanned different organizations, from, sort of Allegra Care, Savills, what would you say has been the sort of guiding force behind it, behind that journey?

Henry Lumby: 2:35

I think I've had a, a, a, a real passion for, for making change. Mm-hmm. really early in my career. so back in sort of 2001, when I started out, I, I was, involved as a real real estate broker down in Bournemouth, the South Coast. Mm-hmm. The sort of retirement capital of the, of the uk. back then the Blue Rinse Brigade, as it was known, known as, and we were handling part exchange properties as part of our sort of, you know, general sales effort of, Bovis from McCarthy and Stone, both at the time were, were doing, retirement housing. And we were selling, apartments or one particular apartment in Bournemouth where a gentleman had lived. He'd moved in part exchange and it was just in a terrible state. And it started to, to trigger, a sort of intrigue as to, to what, why was this person living in such bad conditions? Why hadn't they moved? moved earlier, roll forward a couple of years. I joined savis, for my first stint, and one of the communities that we were selling, I was working in new homes, was, a retirement community, which had been built in Dorchester. Mm-hmm. the bizarre thing about this particular retirement community is it's the maternity hospital that I was born in. Yeah.

Adrian Strittmatter: 3:39

and end be Exactly.

Henry Lumby: 3:41

exactly. So slightly surreal. And it was also the, became the eye hospital where my grandfather had his eye taken, one of his eyes taken out. Really bizarre sort of personal

Adrian Strittmatter: 3:49

set of coins. Yeah.

Henry Lumby: 3:50

But we were, we were in, we remember being in this community and, and, and selling it. And the communal doors were, what you'd have in a sort of like a school where they had the wire, the fire doors with the wire and the glass really you know, cheap and nasty. And I thought, isn't there something better that can be, can be done here? And, you know, people were buying it because it was the only option they had within the local community. But it wasn't aspirational, it wasn't really serving a need other than being an age restricted community. and then in 2010, I, I joined a, a retirement, developer and also care operator, down on the south coast. And we delivered our first later living community, adjacent to a, to a care home that we'd sold the land for. Mm-hmm. And it was fascinating. We sold the scheme out really quickly. everyone came from the local community apart from one gentleman, Derek, who had moved from Worthing to be near his girlfriend. but they weren't gonna live together. And, and what was fascinating with that was everyone, when you asked them, what do you think about these, these houses? And they said, we love them. I said, well, okay, tell me what you don't like. So we took our construction director, we took our architects, interior designers, and we sat with them and said, what don't you like? And we got really good insights from them about, tap design. the a, Taps, for instance, where, we had little, plug sockets on the back. So you pull the little plug handle. and actually for a gentleman who had, arthritis that wasn't suitable, the taps were beautiful, but they were spindly. we had, desk lamps, or a number of people had desk lamps either side or their, kitchen sinks, and they had lovely big windows in front. They said, why have you got that? There's a light above? And they said, well, you are, you are young people. You stand straight when you do the dish dishes. Mm-hmm. And, but actually we're older so we come slightly forward. So we create the cone, around our heads and, and that's the, and so where we were positioning lights wasn't suitable for them. When we then did our next scheme, we took the lessons that we'd learned and applied those to the next scheme. And it helps us with. The sales success of that scheme. And so that's actually then gone on. And actually a lot of the learnings that we've put into orange Chelsea have come from that. And so there was a, a drive to create change that you can deliver better and better product. But also there was such an undersupply of this product and it was screaming out for, for more. So that sort of kept that theme through my career of later living and, and older people. And, and I guess, I just love, love older people, which probably sits at the front, you know, the front and center of why, why I'm in this sector.

Adrian Strittmatter: 6:11

Well also, the better work that you do now, the, the better, the better later years you'll have as well.

Henry Lumby: 6:16

that's, that's very true. That's very true. I remember my, my grandmother being in a, in a, she was in a care home in West Aset. Mm-hmm. And, and she was in a sort of basement room and I remember basically Nora batty from last of summer wine esque coming past with rolled tights, past, shuffling past her window. And my grandma had just given up on life, and I thought, actually, there's gotta be something better to be here. Yeah. You shouldn't be in a basement room at 91.

Adrian Strittmatter: 6:40

and I think that, you know, we we're gonna go more into detail about a lot of the societal and transformational elements that are really, you know, well it's, it's an existing market, but that is going to be fueled by those. But, what would you say is for you, the big sort of driving business and social impact story behind later living and why you were drawn to that as well? About the sort of making it better and, and constant improvement.

Henry Lumby: 7:02

So I think the, the, As a sector we have, because we have an aging population, we have the A sector which has the opportunity to be larger than build to rent and, student housing combined. Mm-hmm. You know, the, like most western societies, we have an aging population that's absolutely key, but actually the wider benefits of a later living solution and providing choice and somewhere where people actually want to go to and make the move provides huge benefits to the housing market. the over 65s have, you know, circa 3 trillion of housing wealth. there are, you know, over a million properties four bedrooms, or more, which are owned by the over 65s The, the amount of empty bedrooms that sit in the country are absolutely incredible. So people are living in the wrong properties and for generations, it's felt like we've had government policy, which is focused on both investors and, in terms of buy-to-let investors. and also on, the help to buy, and starter homes, which are, you know, starter homes particularly is obviously a very important, area, but we've been building the wrong stock and not providing choice for people to, to right size, to move to age appropriate housing, which will free up family housing to, to allow people to move up, move up the ladder. And I think that is, is a huge driver. Also, when you look at the healthcare system, the amount of people who are bed blocking. So by that I mean people who have a fall or some kind of medical instance and who have to go into hospital and aren't able to be discharged back until their home is being modified to be suitable for them. and that costs, you know, hundreds of millions of pounds. The NHS every year. often those people end up in care homes. for many local authorities, the biggest, and overwhelming percentage of their annual budgets is taken up with provision of adult social care. So paying for people to be in care homes. Mm-hmm. those are people who, if they'd been in age appropriate housing, would most likely not have ended up in, in, in those needing to be in those care homes or needing to be in those hospitals. So you can see by making little changes, we can actually make a profound change to society for the better.

Adrian Strittmatter: 9:06

And so that's really interesting from a I, I think so from the levers that you can control the ones that are potentially more personal. And you referenced your, your grandmother, and I think both my grandmothers were the same when they had to leave their house or leave their apartment. It felt like the beginning of the end, in essence. So how do you overcome that in the sense of providing appropriate stock? So they feel that there is a continuation. I mean, how do you help with that journey?

Henry Lumby: 9:37

So I, I think. It's quite, quite interesting to talk about, as much as about the product, it's actually about the methodology of how you mm-hmm. You sell to people. So the methodology, that we use is actually centered around how you deal with, with drug addicts. Mm-hmm. So it came out of, a great guy in the US called David Smith, who, who builds a CRM platform called, called Sherpa, having been a, a, a later living operator himself. And, PCS, so person centered selling is about providing a solution to the problem and under finding out what the underlying issue is. And, an example that, that I, that I often give is, a lady in the US told me at a conference lady in the us had been coming to a community for a number of years to look at, but wouldn't make the change. Mm-hmm. And eventually the sales consultants got built trust and got a trust breakthrough. And she said, my two sons were adopted, but I don't know where their birth certificates are and I don't want'em to find out. So no amount of building the right product and the right sales, you know, people would've got her to move. Alex, the particular sales consultant, went through her property and found and loft the birth certificates. Her secret was kept safe. She moved to the community. So the, the, the journey is much longer and much more complex than

Adrian Strittmatter: 10:49

and super personal,

Henry Lumby: 10:50

super personal, super personal. And so we celebrate and my sales team celebrate advances in terms of we, what are we discovering, what do we know about people? and often you're dealing with multi, generations of family who are involved in decision making. We have a book called, which we pulled up every copy we can find called How to Talk to Seniors, which is we give to children where their parents are in denial. and actually there's like, they need to make a change, but that they're not, not able to. So a later living community is about providing a solution to a problem that they have. Mm-hmm. Um, for many people, they are lonely, so they've lost their spouse. there's an, there's a, and it may be an impending loss of a spouse. there is often an underlying medical condition. It could be that stairs have become too much of a barrier for them, an issue. And so that sort of event prompts the move. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and they will often come in going, this isn't for me. This isn't right for me. I'm too young. that sort of denial phase. Mm-hmm. And, and what makes them, them, them, them move to it is, being part of a community. so being around, other like-minded people, it's almost like going back to university. Yeah. There's a very much a sort of collegiate, you know, feel to it. by being, by having people who are providing a great service to you, the, the relationship between the team who work on site, with the residents is always absolutely key. You see that friendship and you see that around the world, wherever I've been, beyond our own communities. and then having that peace of mind of care and support so they can maintain their independence, but as their needs change, as they need, support that can be provided very discreetly within the home.

Adrian Strittmatter: 12:19

Within the home and, and then just because maybe some of our listeners won't be aware, and I'm pretty sure, I'm not gonna say none of them are, but a big proportion won't be. What would you, what are the key, so in terms of the market, the real difference between an integrated retirement sort of community and a care home, what, what is it, what are the big differences in terms of the different subproducts that sit within, within your sector of senior living?

Henry Lumby: 12:41

I'm gonna just add an additional, curve ball to that, if I may. in, in here in the UK there's, there's basically three types of, of them. retirement, housing, first of all, retirement housing is, is basically a house builder delivering retirement communities. So over here that would be McCarthy and Stone Churchill Retirement, or Churchill Living as an now called, which, are effectively, blocks of circa 40 apartments. they have a, a residence lounge. they have a, a, a a manager who's there during the day and they may in some schemes have a sort of small bistro and an exercise studio, but they are relatively small, predominantly, one beds. And that was the sort of default model within the uk, really for sort of 40 years. And, and John McCarthy built a a billion pound business. and, and actually Churchill is his two sons, Spencer and Clinton. Or two of his sons, the integrated retirement communities, that concept came from Australia and New Zealand and also the US which was much, um, uh, broader scheme, so much higher number of units. So typically between 60 and 200 units. and providing a much greater range of facilities. So you'll have gyms, you'll have potentially spas, cinemas, activity rooms, restaurants, and, and they are very much an, an operational business. You have a house builder who delivers it and moves on very much like Barrett Homes. Mm-hmm. They may have a small operational, a sort of management of the service charge, whereas integrated retirement communities are very much operational real estate. Mm-hmm. and akin to a hotel. but they are independent living, so they are providing, people who are in their late seventies a solution to some underlying health condition or change of circumstance. Yep. Allowing them to, to then age in place. For a care home. Those are for people typically who have more advanced care needs. Mm-hmm. so those are typically, you know, late eighties, early nineties. Mm-hmm. there may be cognitive issues. So often, dementia is, is, is, is, one of the reasons that people will be, be within that.

Adrian Strittmatter: 14:36

Would you say that's the biggest reason that people would come to a care home?

Henry Lumby: 14:40

No, it, it's a, because of this pace that, dementia and Alzheimer's is, is growing in, in globally, it, it is

Adrian Strittmatter: 14:46

It's becoming that.

Henry Lumby: 14:47

but if I, if I take back to my days with, with Allegra Care that I co-founded, we would have typically a three story care home, which would be between 60 and 80 beds. You'd have ground floor, which is residential care. Mm-hmm. So that's very low, low care needs. Mm-hmm. that's where people just need, need some support, to towards the end of the end of life. Mm-hmm. Then you'd have nursing care and then you'd have dementia. Dementia being the sort of secure, secure floor, and you are looking at palliative and end, end of life care. Mm-hmm. but those are the three buckets if you'd like. Mm-hmm. But what you find is there's a lot of misconception, within the UK that the integrated retirement communities are growing fast, growing from not-for-profits, people like ExtraCare charitable Trust, housing 21, Anchor, who've really being the innovators in terms of scale, 10 year mix. Yeah. providing care, within those, and then you've seen this sort of UK more thing towards more the Australian model, which is a lifestyle villages. Mm-hmm. But now as customers are changing, there's more care being provided within those and actually customers want that pathway of

Adrian Strittmatter: 15:45

that pathway, exactly. Why would you say, out of interest, those three markets that you reference have, have so much in terms of advance versus the, the UK or potentially other, other European countries as well? Mm-hmm.

Henry Lumby: 16:00

So New Zealand, first of all. Mm-hmm. Um, which we, we often look at as sort of the, the, the shining light, certainly for the last few years for the uk. so they have a retirement villages act. and that, really has put in place the parameters for the operators in which they can operate, the financial models that they can run, which is a, a deferred management fee. So, mm-hmm. they have a long-term interest. In the, in, in the properties. Also not tying their leases that are granted to their residents, to the Magna Carta, which is what obviously the Landlord Tenant Act here goes back to. and also then in the case of Australia, they don't have, stamp duty for later living moves. So there's an incentive for people to, to downsize. in New Zealand it's been very much about the care provision, so you move in and will independent living and will support you through as your care needs change. In Australia, it's the lifestyle villages, but actually what's happened is that as they've introduced, the care provision, they've seen occupancy go up. and so you are almost a hundred percent occupancy in villages with a care provision slightly lower without that. investors have got happy in those two countries. With the deferred management fee model, you are starting to see a mature, you've seen amalgamation of groups into bigger, companies, and those groups are now being sold out to long-term capital. and in the US very much, the model started in the seventies, and has grown very rapidly. And you have a lot of mature, communities which are now trading, which are, and it's a rental model, very much like multifamily. And you see a huge amount of investment every year. But they are, but the customer really sits at the heart of it and they provide a fantastic solution. But again, it's the independent living, assisted living, which is what we would call a care home and then memory care. So dementia care, the villages which have that are absolutely the ones which are, are the shining lights in the, in the US and Canada.

Adrian Strittmatter: 17:48

And, and what would you say then, in terms of the uk, so you've got, obviously there's a big, a big element around the sort of legislation or legislator that is going to help push things forward. What would you say the key sort of challenges or barriers that are present currently in the UK for, for, for, for this last frontier or last untapped

Henry Lumby: 18:06

Yeah. It,

Adrian Strittmatter: 18:07

become, to become a reality?

Henry Lumby: 18:09

Yeah. It felt like we've got close to that frontier a few times and then we've it's gone, gone, gone back

Adrian Strittmatter: 18:14

Yeah.

Henry Lumby: 18:14

it, so 2017 we had the law commission report, looking into event fees, so the deferred management fee, and that was a kind of pivotal moment because the, that looked into the legacy of the McCart and stone, event fees, which were paid on, or resale fees as they were known as, which had had quite a bad press and quite understandably so because of how they'd been set up. And again, that's, you know, very much old McCarthy in stone. what they saw was that, as I said, was as long as it's declared. and there's transparency with the consumer. Then that's absolutely, absolutely fine. Mm-hmm. At the time, the uk independent, integrated retirement community operators, trade body Arco were putting in place their own, consumer code that was based on the New Zealand Retirement Villages Act. That I, that I mentioned earlier. And, and that, adoption of by the operators of this consumer code. And, and I saw this on a turnaround project I was involved with for helical. Mm-hmm. or Renaissance villages. It, it was fascinating because we, with the deferred management fee, when we arrived to, to on the project, the sales team didn't understand it. When we suddenly put effectively a mortgage key facts in front of them, they understood what we were saying. And actually that the deferred management fee had a benefit to the customer as well as the investor. And at that point in 2017, we saw, AXA come in and buy retirement villages, group. We saw, legal and general come in and buy Spy Villages. And then Renaissance Villages, who I just mentioned, Goldman Sachs came in and, set up Riverstone. and so you felt like momentum was really building, octopus came in with Schroeders and PIC into to a couple of operators and it felt like at that point we were getting to the frontier and Momentum was really going to to, to, to, to build. But. and the output of your law commission was that that was gonna move through to primary legislation. Mm-hmm. The government responders said, yes, we get this, this is good, but then nothing happened. And o over the years you've had, investors looking at this firm management fee going, well, that we get it, but actually where's the, the, the proof of it, of it, of its selling. and so investors have looked very much at their returns from the development side rather than from the long-term income side. Whereas in Australia and New Zealand, they're very much just looking at the long-term investment value. Well,'cause

Adrian Strittmatter: 20:18

everything's in place as

Henry Lumby: 20:19

because ev everyth, everything's in place. So it, the, the sector has been, and also it's been hit by, everything being bespoke. So if you look at kind of McCarthy and Stone, you know, one of the things that I really admire about John McCarthy and Bill Stone, who are, you know, the, the, the guys who founded it was they absolutely, they were builders by trade and they understood the supply chain and they understood, how to absolutely get their efficiencies. so they knew that, you know, how they could really create a scalable business and that, and having those sort of formulaic. Four plates, they were able to roll out, and, and have very tight control over materials. meant that the, they could really get scale. In the uk, here, we need to see a later living operator actually almost becoming a house builder first to them become the operator in New Zealand. Some of the biggest companies on the New Zealand Stock Exchange are retirement village operators. People like Ryman, they started out as, house builders. Mm-hmm. So you can see that actually house builders morphing into, operators actually is a very interesting, you know, opportunity.

Adrian Strittmatter: 21:19

And in terms of going back to the investors or the people who are coming into the market. Yeah. What would you say are the key sort of, or the strongest value drivers that they would look at and go, okay, so obviously you've got the big sort of social demographic shift going. It makes complete sense. Yeah. You know, the numbers are in our favor. This is only going one way. But what would you say the other strong, like the strong value levers would be?

Henry Lumby: 21:44

I think they're really driven by, reputational risk. they don't want to be seen to be, in many cases providing care. So if I go back to the likes of when legal and general were coming into an axel, coming into the sector, it was like, we don't have any association with care. We, we almost want to be lifestyle villages. Whereas I think now there is a much greater recognition of wanting to do the whole cycle. So actually pro

Adrian Strittmatter: 22:08

is that, do you think? In terms of why? Why does care have a bad rep? It's counterintuitive in

Henry Lumby: 22:13

It, it, it is. I think, I think there've been, you know, there's, there's, when care goes wrong, it becomes very newsworthy. And I think that's, that's where the issue is. But actually there are so many absolutely fantastic caregivers as people, but also care organizations across the UK and globally who provide absolutely fantastic care and support. I only had to see it from my own, you know, business Allegra in, during the, the, the, you know, the COVID times mm-hmm. How people went above and beyond, you know, people stayed living in those care homes during mm-hmm. The pandemic, when we were, we were, people were locked in the, the length people were, were giving their phones, you know, to, to residents so they could speak to family, when they couldn't see family for so long because of lockdown. So I, I, I think people have started to look at the care sector differently and look at later living differently. That actually it's more of a solution to, to the problem.

Adrian Strittmatter: 23:01

But I can definitely see the, you know, because the minute there is one incident, it, it is headline news and the reputational risk from a, you know, from, from, from a, from a, from an image perspective can

Henry Lumby: 23:12

And, and that's why regulation is so important. Mm-hmm. so regulation of the sector, both in terms of the provision of care, so the Care Quality Commission, but also who, who regulate personal care, but also in terms of the integrated retirement community operators, Arco and the consumer code. You know, I'm the code compliance officer Auriens, we have to go through a very, very extensive audit that's looking at all our marketing materials. Mm-hmm. That's looking at our complaint logs, that's looking at, our, each year we have to have an independent, resident satisfaction survey. we have to, to look at all of our, you know, website, making sure we are not, as an industry, selling, you know, anything underhand. You know, we have to have the highest standards and that's what investors want because they really care about their reputation, and they really want to see long-term value growth. and, and for, for the, for, for the sector, it's about how do we create long-term value from this sector and make it,'cause it is defensible, the demographics are there. Mm-hmm. But we need to raise greater awareness of the product and of the benefits.

Adrian Strittmatter: 24:09

And in terms of, or, so we, we will so go, straight into the sort of, you know, the, the development of the brand of the product. It is referred to as the gold standard of later living, which is, you know, is, is a great, is a great standard, but also something as you mentioned, that you had to live up, that you have to constantly day by day, live up to. Yeah. Why or how is that sort of the case? Why, why is it referred to, in your view as the gold standard?

Henry Lumby: 24:40

It's a really interesting, strap line for us to have because it is something that we actually, it runs the burning, burning half of the business mm-hmm. Is what we do, but also what our residents remind us of. That's what they, they expect for, for, for the sector in the uk it's largely grown out outside London, so the provision of later living in London has been really. Limited. and so Auriens was the first scheme, of its type to be delivered in effectively the super prime, area. And, you know, our residents are quite rightly, you know, used to the best of the best. And so we had to set up a, a, a business and grow a business and grow a service at a reputation that's. was based on hospitality, was based on, lifestyle, community, and also, the invisible hand of care. So that supports when you, when you need it. I, I always say it's, you know, like having a crash and in, in your car and you want to know the airbags gonna go off. Mm-hmm. And our team are delivered from, I've been handpicked from, the best hotels in London. you know, our chef is from the Savoy, our restaurant managers from Carson Tower, our head concierge with some Groveland house suites. and, you know, they are really, really fabulous, you know, people and, and the whole team are, and they really care about our residents and about our welfare and, and our residents almost refer to'em as a second family. Mm-hmm. and, and it's about just going above and beyond. And when you see the interactions that happen every day between our residents and just knowing, you know, how they like their coffee, being able to, you know, we can book you a table at the Columbia. but also our concierge can sort out your iPad when it's broken. Mm-hmm. And being able to really go above and beyond, that's what our, our, our residents, you know, expect. and having that company and that community. And actually what's really interesting in my mind is that we could have delivered it, I'd a less, higher quality building.'cause that's not what's, is what is important to our residents. What is important to our residents is the, community. It's the service. Mm-hmm. It's the lifestyle. I remember a resident coming back from her holiday and she, she'd been on a cruise and she came back in her limo to the, the front door. And I happened to be by concierge at the time. And, and the, you know, the concierge go out, they pick her suitcases out of

Adrian Strittmatter: 26:51

the car.

Henry Lumby: 26:52

out of the car. And, and William or general manager, comes out to greet her, sits down, they have a coffee. The guys have taken her ba, her suitcases up to her, her apartment. her driver, you know, comes in, has a quick chat and then goes, and she's like, it's so good to be home. And that is the, the the really nice thing. you know, we can just source out any, any problem. one of the great things that I, I love look looking at is, my office overlooks stuff, house green, so just overlooking the King's Road. And I often see our, you know, residents, our concierge walking, arm in arm with our residents, or carrying their bags or shopping back from Waitrose or m and s or whole Whole Foods. even actually this week, Julie, our, our CEO arrived to a meeting a few minutes later and we said, where have you been? And she said, I've just been walking Pauline to M and s. and it's just that level of, you know, a really interesting community. and, and it does have that collegiate feel that I mentioned, mentioned earlier.

Adrian Strittmatter: 27:46

And in terms of who, are there any, it's really interesting sort of slightly off piece with regards to hospitality. Do you think there might be hotel operators who can see that? Sort of ability to provide that experience, especially now when we see you know, all the hotel brands all offering different things from lifestyle to accommodation. Yeah. Do you see any of them, well not necessarily naming any names, but do you see that as a possibility that someone would go, well, hang on a second, because the care element is, as you mentioned, a bit like the airbag. We can offer something here in a similar way to So spinoff from branded residences. Yes. I dunno, it's a weird question, but

Henry Lumby: 28:29

it's a very good question. It's a very good question. It wasn't in your

Adrian Strittmatter: 28:32

No it wasn't. I did off

Henry Lumby: 28:34

Yeah, no, no, that's fine. what I, what I would say with that is, a lot of the leading Operators in the sector mm-hmm. Are people who have come from hotel backgrounds. Gotcha. and you know, I think through my own business, you know, C-E-O-C-F-O both work at Cubic together. Mm-hmm. Um, uh, you know, our, our, our GM is x hotelier, as I mentioned, most of the operations team are. so definitely there is a scope for, hoteliers to come into the sector. But what's interesting, and I think where the sector is moving to, and I think probably the reason that a lot of hoteliers have come in is, one, it's operational real estate. It's about understanding how you run a building well over the long term, but. Where I'm seeing the sector pivoting to is that the provision of care is much more important. So it is, it is actually how you integrate that care. And by care I mean wellbeing. So when you move in, having a really good wellbeing, so supporting you, with your, your, your, your sort of physical, condition, making sure you're eating the right, the right things. so when. The resident moves into Auriens. They have a, a, a wellbeing assessment carried out by, our wellbeing team, which is led by a gentleman called Gideon Remey, who's one of the top 25 trainers in the world. And, and so they'll take the bloods and there look at, and do full survey of our residents and look at, you know, where do we need to improve them, what, you know, do. Have particular issues with certain muscles, are they deficient in certain terms of certain things? Mm-hmm. and how can we improve that? And it's almost like creating a blue zone.'cause we see and we track their results and you see huge improvements. we actually did, just did it as a, with a, an ambassador of our, jars brand. And actually, you know, he was shocked at the, the benefits that it had to his health just over an eight week, eight week program. And, and actually those techniques, that, Gideon, the team use are the same ones they use for elite athletes. Mm-hmm. to break, to break world records. So you have that one side and everyone's looked at wellness, but actually it's about the invisible hand of care. Mm-hmm. It's about how do you support me to age well and to age in place, and to support me as my needs change. or when I have the, loss of a spouse or the impending loss of a spouse. And, and that's where you see the real magic. to answer to your, to your question. Yes, absolutely. I could see that happening. But

Adrian Strittmatter: 30:47

But you need to know

Henry Lumby: 30:48

but you've got to, you can't, you've got to go the next stage because that's what the customers want. And as we see a community like Auriens, you know, as it's matures through Philip and you see residents needs changing, you can see that the care provision and the peace of mind of care is much, much more important. And indeed, globally, having been around the world and talked to residents and communities around the world, those that have that care and support provision are the ones which are, which are, you know, are, are, I think are key

Adrian Strittmatter: 31:19

What you're saying is. Is, has, has opened up something really interesting and maybe relates back to the scale question, but so we're talking if I, and if I'm correct in assuming that you have two options, which is rental or purchase. Yeah. Is there room for

Henry Lumby: 31:36

Or Or in general?

Adrian Strittmatter: 31:37

at at Auriens? yeah, at our end. Sorry. Is there room for short? it's a strange question, but short term, lets, which would someone comes in, they've just had something, you take care of them, they enjoy lifestyle, then go back home, then something else happens, they come. So what I'm trying to say is that in terms of the, the scalability. In terms of the flexibility of the offer. Yeah. To become a part-time resident. Exactly. Respite and then part-time, and then actually, well, you know what? I might, you know, I'm really happy here. I should have moved earlier, blah, blah, blah.

Henry Lumby: 32:09

You are absolutely. You've, you've hit the nail on the, on the head of one of the options of how you, how you fill a community. Mm-hmm. so we offer a service called try before you buy. so that is where people can come in and can try the lifestyle because they might be thinking, is this quite for me? So they may come to lots of events. They may come and meet lots of residents. They may come meet lots of their team, however they actually wanna experience a lifestyle. So coming into the community and going, okay, this is, this is interesting, this is for me, and actually living the life for a resident. But the point you are making, which is a stage further from that'cause, and we see that as a good conversion tool, is there's an underlying medical. Issue that's, or condition or crisis that's happened. It could be when they've had a, a knee or hip replaced. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They've gone to the Cloverdale for instance, and then, you know, they've been there for a couple of weeks. Where do they go from there? Do they go back home? Do they have to go to a care home? Actually, could they come to somewhere like, like Auriens? And that, start of their journey is, is very important. We've also seen people where there has been a crisis move in within 24 hours into one of our show apartments. and, and the team are able to, to, to react, you know, very quickly. But again, what you are, the theme that you are starting to pick up on is that the people who are moving here, something has happened. Mm-hmm. There is an underlying reason that is making them go, I need to make a change. Now often those people will just stay in their existing home and then that's when they end up becoming a burden to mm-hmm. The NHS or, and ending up in a care home. what we are saying is actually there can be a solution within their local community.'cause remember, everyone is typically coming from within the local community. Mm-hmm. Yeah. At Auriens, they're coming very much from a, a tight, two mile, you know, radius, o of, of us.

Adrian Strittmatter: 33:54

In terms of branding and marketing, and obviously you would've done all the competitor analysis. How did you choose that positioning? How did you choose your sort of spot in the market, and then how did you communicate it to make sure that you had that gold standard as much in terms of positioning as actually product delivery and, and provision?

Henry Lumby: 34:11

really interesting question. At the time I wasn't at or

Adrian Strittmatter: 34:14

Mm-hmm.

Henry Lumby: 34:14

but I was previously a consultant when I was back at Savills for the second time to, or, and the original founders of the business, David, Johnny and Karen. Their, their sort of thinking and, and sort of the, the genesis of it was that both Dave, Johnny and Karen's parents had had to have care at home and it cost a huge amount of, of, of money. Mm-hmm. And there was nothing catering for the absolute high end, you know, market within, within London. and so they were looking at the time of being the one Hyde Park in terms of, of property, Harley Street, in terms of, of medical care, and the Ritz in terms of hospitality. and, you know, they went off on, on that journey, opened the community, and then, it was acquired by, by by Oaktree. And at the time there was, a lot of misconceptions and we were there sort of on the outside at the time looking at it going, okay, how, how's this kind of gonna work? And it was very much focused, it felt, from when we came in that it was focused on being high end residential and that the care and support was something that, that wasn't really talked about. It was, it was, it was almost shied away from. And I think that as we have looked to find our position within the market, we've looked to say, well look, if Chelsea Barracks is at the other end of the King's Road, and that's really high end residential. They've got great apartments, they've got great, facilities. Yeah. So if we, they've got great, you know, nice concierge, what's the point of difference? It's the hospitality. and it's the care and support. Mm-hmm. And it's the community. So those are the drivers that we are gonna focus on and that's how we're going to, to, to build the brand. and, and so it's about subtly repositioning ourselves to be, something that people can relate to, something they can understand. And. Within this sector, in, in, in the, people don't go to Rightmove They also don't go to estate agents typically to find this type of product. Mm-hmm. They're often, often not aware of the product. So the main sort of sources of leads mm-hmm. Are direct marketing. Mm-hmm. the problem, and I, I was with one of our, our partners, who's in her eighties and, I, I was at her house in Belgravia and, and, and she said, look at all this, there's a stack of direct marketing pieces from all of the operators in greater London. And she said, I'm being carpet bombed. and I don't blame her. And it was like, actually, how do you set yourself apart from that? So you have to elevate. So going back to your gold standard, we have to be above that. We have to be able to say, you know, we are unashamedly more expensive than the competition. But that has to actually offer value. When you look at everything that we provide, there is actually significant value there. Mm-hmm. and that's something that our residents, whether they be on a rental basis or whether it be on a purchase basis, very much, you know, buy into, but, but I think the key thing is, is, is you know, working your local community to understand who you are. our community engagement teams, our partnerships team, are out in the community, because word of mouth is absolutely key. You, you want the, the lawyer, you want the wealth manager, you want the person at the local society, the person at Local Bridge Club to know about us and to know that we're good people and that we're a good place and that we're a solution. and that we are providing a solution to the problem that their friend, their family, their associate may have. Mm-hmm. And that they should recommend that they come to see us.

Adrian Strittmatter: 37:23

Because you've also, I saw you've also got a program of events in-house from concerts to talks. Yeah. that is also a really good way to show part of the community, to be able to invite people as opposed to asking them to purchase in a weird way,

Henry Lumby: 37:37

Yeah. So we, we very much, invite the curious, we always say, if we can get people to the front door. Mm-hmm. then, then half our, our, our job is, is, is done. we have a, a sort of club called Friends of Auriens, which about people who are considering, or, or who may be a little bit too young for Auriens. who, but one day in the future may, consider it for them to, to come and partake in events, to be part of our community, almost a community within a community, and partake in, in all of our events. So we have outward facing events. and one specifically for the residents, but, you know, recitals are very, very, well received. we have, you know, talks fascinating, talks, We've had Charles Brander Thin recently, Ingrid Seawood coming in, talking about the Royal family. we had actually a really lovely one, which was a, the love letters of Frederick Chopan, which was Lucy Parham and Patricia Hodge. Mm-hmm. And Alex Jennings, who was the last Prince Charles and the Crown randomly. And they came in, they did it in two places in London, did Kagan Hall, and the following night they did it at Auriens. Oh, wow. Good. Yeah. And it, and it, and it, and it was absolutely amazing. so you have those sort of events, Alfresco dining in the summer. Mm-hmm. and you know, which is great life music and, and, and dinner. But also we have a range of activities for the residents. So our art classes are really, really popular singing classes. on a Monday we have concierge cakes. Our residents come together with, with down our head concierge, and they'll sit with them and, with, you know, panels our head chef and Jamilla and the restaurant, restaurant manager. And they'll go through, you know, what foods do they like in the restaurant? Mm-hmm. What didn't they like, what the upcoming menus are. But also they'll choose the films they want to watch in the cinema, if there's a particular opera, performance that they want to have live streamed, but also trips they want to do. in a couple of weeks we've got a number of residents going off to Cornwall. Mm-hmm. Now, with, with the team, the reason they're going is two years ago they went with Dan, who's originally from Cornwall to, for him to show them his, his, his Cornwall. And they loved it so much. They want to go

Adrian Strittmatter: 39:28

I wanna go back.

Henry Lumby: 39:29

We went to Dublin last year'cause one of our residents said his bucket list on his bucket list was to go and see Riverdance live in Dublin. so they did that. They have backstage. and it's those sorts of experiences, that really make it special. Just as, as you know, those can be also, you know, very sound, very glamorous. Mm-hmm. But they're something as, as simple as a a, a rest of ours used to always go for fish and chips in Belgravia. Mm. And so the team will

Adrian Strittmatter: 39:53

We'll take them there as

Henry Lumby: 39:53

and his wife, you know, they'll go off to, to that, they'll go past their old house in our, in our Range Rover and, you know, he just stop and pause and reflect on the memories. And it's those sorts of connections, which are, you know, which, which create those memories and create those special times for them.

Adrian Strittmatter: 40:09

And I think, which really then position you clearly at the top, top of the market. There's a lot of personal stories, A lot of, I would say taking interest. Yeah. In the residents. A lot of people would say, well, that's great. You are really at the top of the market and you are you know, responding to the promise and in, in a really successful way. Mm-hmm. In terms of scalability Yeah. Of the industry or even scalability, maybe if we start from their scalability of Auriens, how, how do you see that working in terms of future sort of developments? Prospects of, of Auriens as a brand? Across, you know, different locations if it

Henry Lumby: 40:46

one thing I would say is that the, the rationale of why people age and the needs they have as they get older in terms of loneliness. Mm-hmm. in terms sense of, of place and purpose. a sense of being seen, a sense of peace of mind, of knowing that there's, there's someone there to look after them. Mm-hmm. That is the same whatever price point

Adrian Strittmatter: 41:05

What a price

Henry Lumby: 41:06

and what, and wherever you are globally, the, the Auriens platform backed by Oaktree. It was, was set up originally by the original founders to really focus on super prime for us. That that is a really good market. It's a market that's never been supplied, but it's not a market that you create scale in Mm-hmm. And so for us, we have our second community that will be, coming forward through, into construction in due course. Mm-hmm. which was an Mikala site, so when we were also bought by, by Oak Tree and created a blended family. But, but actually moving down that wealth, pyramid, I, I is I think what the place to go, the way to go. I think that the the concentration of this product has been in the southeast of the uk. There's a huge amount of this products in Surrey, uh, heads. Yeah, we've got one in Weybridge, but, but, but actually this, this is needed across the country. Mm-hmm. And if you can solve issues around, cost of a construction, planning, issues can be delivered because as it's C two, same as a care home, or is it C3? and that sort of lack of understanding of how long it takes to, to, to build, but also, around customer understanding of the product you, so you can fill the schemes up quicker. means that, you know, for us we need to create a scalable platform, but also that scalable platform needs to have that invisible hand of care and support and that pathway of care sitting within that. So I think we're gonna see the sector going from luxury and there's been an arms race in which Auriens is unashamedly the, the absolute pinnacle of that, the arms race to, to deliver the most luxurious later living communities. but actually I think those are. They have a place, but actually what people want is that care and support and that peace of mind. And so, um, I think there'll be innovation in terms of the scale of schemes, tenure types. so probably more hybrid communities offering both rental and for sale. but also how the, resident and amenity, rather than being blocks of different components actually integrates. And it, rather than it being a, a, a room that is named, let's say the cinema, it's actually everything is multipurpose multi, it's actually at different times of the day, how does a room flex, which means you can be much more efficient because one of the problems that the sector has had is that the net to gross has been very poor in comparison to, to residential and in comparison to, to build, to rent. You know, and if you go and look at some of these, you know, build to rent schemes, the way they, their, their spaces are multi-use just works, works so well. Mm-hmm. and I think also that, that, the, you know, what you are, you are doing to create an intergenerational community and being in the heart of Urban areas,

Adrian Strittmatter: 43:36

Urban. Yeah,

Henry Lumby: 43:37

Because of funding in sector, it's traditionally been, been outside, you know, outside in rural areas.

Adrian Strittmatter: 43:41

Hmm. Do you think there's a place though, just keeping with, you know, this idea of, of expansion of Auriens, a a, a place for there to be Auriens, New York Auriens Dubai Hong Kong. Yeah. And being basically if there's, you know, if there's one per global city Yeah. That becomes the standard from which Yeah. Other people learn or, or aspire to, definitely. Mm-hmm.

Henry Lumby: 44:06

Definitely. I think that the, the scope and we do get a, a few approaches which are, which are always very interesting to go to, to other, other territories. I absolutely think that there is the place for Auriens within, you know, some of the greats of global cities. Mm-hmm. and that is probably the area where we could go in almost as the hotel sale operator that you talked about, the brand in residence. Mm-hmm. As you talked about earlier, you know, working with a local partner to deliver it. And we would then come in and, and, and be the long term operator. And I think Auriens as a brand always has the have and occupy that space as being the gold standard mm-hmm. Of later living, whether it be in Chelsea or whether it be, you know, globally. And then you create a, a second sort of brand or, or, or tertiary brand, which then provides the, you know, the four star and the three star model. But within the group, which has, you know, the scale of the, the number of units and communities that sit across that. And you see that very much in, in America, where you'll have, you know, different brands for either different geographies or different price points. but all under the same, the same ownership structure. Okay.

Adrian Strittmatter: 45:06

And we were talking about this before, and you're very, very passionate about how later living can obviously provide a service for its residents or the, or let's say its target audience, but it can also solve a lot of other or annex or collateral challenges that are facing, let's say the housing market. Yeah. At the moment. Yeah. Could you, could you talk about that a little bit about how you really feel that the sector can, can help yeah. Open up, you know, some of the, some of the problems

Henry Lumby: 45:34

yeah. so just so stepping back, one of the key problems that the sector has is a lack of understanding of what it is. Mm-hmm. but also an under a lack of understanding of the benefits. to give an example, we were involved as mikala for site in Bristol. and when you talked about later living Bristol City Council were like, don't understand what that is. Whereas if you said extra care, they're like, oh yeah, we understand that, that, that, that would be C two. Just from a, from a choice of choice of words. And so your integrated retirement communities was like talking a different language, you know, to to, to them. Because there is, with it being typically C two, and having a care provision that sits within it, that doesn't count towards target house housing targets for local authorities. Mm-hmm. Also, because typically C two doesn't attract affordable housing, it also is politically not, attractive to, to them to, to, to deliver it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. so you feel like you're on a sort of the back foot when they, these communities are built and open. they go, this is great, we need more of this. So the, the, what we really need is clear guidance from central government, which says these are the benefits in terms of, it frees up. Family housing that is under occupied by, by older people. Mm-hmm. You know, I, I think about where I live in Hampshire, you know, my, my road is full predominantly of older people who are living in four or five bedroom houses, in their seventies and eighties. Mm-hmm. and you know, they, they, they just don't have a solution. They don't have a choice

Adrian Strittmatter: 46:59

That's the thing. There's no

Henry Lumby: 46:59

There's no incentive for them to go. Of course. Whereas, whereas if, if they had a, an incentive to, to right size, to, to age appropriate housing, that would mean that, that those houses, which, you know, they live in currently could be recycled to families who are looking to move up, who are over occupying smaller houses. They might be living, living in flats. And, and I go back to, to my second time at savis, where before I set the retirement living business, I was in the London resi development team doing new homes. And I remember my first client was, Greenland, who was Chinese, state owned business. And we had Ram Brewery down in Wandsworth. And I remember being out in Singapore at the exhibition where we'd flown in to sell these flats to, you know,

Adrian Strittmatter: 47:44

The road

Henry Lumby: 47:45

Yeah. The road

Adrian Strittmatter: 47:46

road shows. Yeah.

Henry Lumby: 47:46

with an amazing model, which had the river Wol looking at the most blue you've ever seen it. and having Lego, street lamps, it was really quite surreal. But this, this scheme had been delivered, also designed by Decia and Minerva. Mm-hmm. And to get the, the planning permission, they delivered a lot or planned a lot of family apartments, so large family apartments within the buildings. And we were selling those not to families. We're selling'em to investors. Those investors were buying it to rent them out or to make a capital gain on it. Mm-hmm. But then you're sat there going, so we're actually, the product was designed to families isn't actually being sold to families. Then you've got the basis of, in Wandsworth, there's all these Victorian, you know, terraces that are, Older people are under occupying them and you're like, so why aren't we building a block here of later living, apartments, and a community that's age appropriate that supports people to age in place and to maintain their

Adrian Strittmatter: 48:38

And that's throwing up the

Henry Lumby: 48:39

and free up the stock. And free up the stock. And so this family apartment could actually be two later living apartments and that would free up two local houses. Mm-hmm. And and actually wouldn't have this thing of. Investors buying up, buying up the stock, you know, those people, because they would be living in this age appropriate community, would less, have less chance of ending up in a care home. They would if they spend less days in less Yeah, exactly. The, the number of, of, visits hospital, the number of days that they would spend in hospital mm-hmm. The visits to doctors, the, you know, various other issues like that would be reduced. something very clearly referenced by Asen University's research with ExtraCare Charitable Trust in looking into their residents on, on two or three or different occasions. And so you're sat there going, there's societal change that can happen here. Mm-hmm. Um, and we need to focus on these people who are soon to be the largest cohort,

Adrian Strittmatter: 49:31

largest demographic.

Henry Lumby: 49:32

gonna have more people retired than we are working, so let's provide a solution to those people. Let's help. Not only the housing market, let's also, help the, the, the, the social care sector. Mm-hmm. Let's help, local authorities. Let's help the NHS. And also it's a really good thing from an ESG perspective. Mm-hmm. We're delivering huge, really important social value. and I think that is the, you know, all of those link together, but the message is somehow lost between the different departments within successive governments. Partly it's because you have different housing ministers every five minutes. I arrived here this small or this afternoon, thinking that, you know, the, the, the, you know, when I got up this morning that Angela Rainer was gonna be that, you know, housing, secretary, you know, she's now gone just before we, just before we recorded this. But, but, but that's really the case. I remember talking to, to Lord Best who, who chairs the A PPG on older person's housing. And I remember him talking about housing minister. He goes, it's so difficult'cause they just don't get it unless they can relate to it. So I remember talking about, Brandon Lewis, who used to be, a conservative housing minister and he said he suddenly got it when his parents suddenly were a bit

Adrian Strittmatter: 50:40

and that's the thing when you're

Henry Lumby: 50:41

and then he, and then he was

Adrian Strittmatter: 50:42

Yeah.

Henry Lumby: 50:43

you know, it's a joined up approach to the benefits. and we need to have incentives. We have to have regulation for the sector. So like the Retirement Villages Act in New Zealand, we need to have a stamp duty exemption for, people who are looking as an incentive. Because as much as they are being forced out of their house with a stick, the reason they're actually gonna move is the carrot. That's why you have to have something that's fabulous.

Adrian Strittmatter: 51:07

Well it's the other end of the sort of first time buyer schemes and

Henry Lumby: 51:09

Exactly, exactly. first time buyer is like, I just wanna go on the housing ladder. Mm-hmm. For an older person, it's like, I, I, this is where I've raised my children. This is what you think about the example I was saying earlier about the, the lady in America. You know, this is where I've, I've, I've, you know, my memories are mm-hmm. I feel they feel guilt about leaving their, their family home. And so you've gotta have that, that sort of coordinated, joined up approach that provides that solution and actually embrace it. And the problem is it falls within different parts of government. you know, that having A-A-A-A-A lease, which is tied to the Magna Carta, you know, we need to, you know, we need to

Adrian Strittmatter: 51:44

could be updated.

Henry Lumby: 51:45

could be updated, but we need to move away. Obviously this talk about moving to Commonhold, we need to move to a sort of occupational right agreement like they have in New Zealand. which should be a very clean contract, with all the regulation that sits around. It means you'll get a lot more investors coming into the sector, and you'll sell the units quicker, which is, you know, a big part of it.

Adrian Strittmatter: 52:03

A big part of the value as well. to, to, to close off one last question. Yeah. Which is based on, on, on something you said, which really resonated with me, which was a, a, a kind of quotation or, or one of the sentences that come, comes back often that you've heard, which is, I wish I'd moved sooner. Yeah. and that was from residents. Yeah. Do you think that statement could also be applied to the market, to investors, to local government, to central government as well? Wished I'd move sooner into the sector?

Henry Lumby: 52:30

Absolutely. Absolutely. that is, it's something I've heard in 20 plus years in later living from countless residents who've moved in and their family members, a a and actually the, the fact that people haven't moved sooner in terms of governments, terms, local governments, et cetera, is that the problem is just gonna get bigger. Mm-hmm. you know, the, the frontier, might at times appear to us to be f you know, quite far away, but actually it's still there and it's actually coming quite fast. Mm-hmm. And actually we need to have a focus on this and, you know. It's a really, really interesting sector. It's a sector where, really there's, there's a huge scope for evolution. You look at the mature markets, and see how they've innovated. We're at that point where investors, can, can do, you know, it really sits at the heart of the, you know, the ESG green agenda. but actually it's, it's where we need to see strategic change within our, our thinking. Mm-hmm. and providing a solution to the, to the customers.'cause they're there and gradually they're becoming more and more aware and that's gonna turn into a tsunami of awareness. and it's, it's gonna be a fascinating journey.

Adrian Strittmatter: 53:36

Henry, this has been absolutely fascinating. Thanks ever so much for coming on the show.

Henry Lumby: 53:40

you very much.

Adrian Strittmatter: 53:41

Thanks, Henry.