They will use the full force of illogical reason to draw blood and money from my confession.

This tacky onslaught of my fine young cannibals is one of the reasons why I consider a retirement village in a remote part of sunny South Africa, but then again, I do suspect that they will have a face(less)book connection that will inform them of a runaway parent.

Click image to view Helderberg Manor, Somerset West

A Western Cape retirement village might in the end be good enough as long as I can ensure that they will not be allowed beyond the gated entrance of my little retirement haven.

Now to the point again. The importance of a well planned bathroom in a retirement village. On the way to life in ecstasy there are many more important issues to consider than the comforts of a bathroom in retirement.

But, my brother, hey sister, there comes a day that one leaves the fairy tale search for exotic fulfillment behind and where the wonder of a well designed bathroom will form an often discussed and passionate topic between wise old timers like myself.

A retirement bathroom needs both a bath and shower. Especially earlier in retirement nothing beats the pleasure of laying down in a hot bath in blatant daylight whilst one’s off spring try their hand at a job that creates their own insipid stream of money. Ha ha (phew!).

My wallet is now mine with or without the doing of the South African Constitution. Me wife, how about another steamy cup of coffee here in my watery kingdom!? You are welcome to join me in here; I have chosen the bath spacious enough for two. Make up your mind, it is either you and I on this crisp morning or that lovely nurse from frail care could just be tempted to tend to a fine old gentleman like me…

But then again reality always sneaks in to come biting.

There is a time in retirement when one cannot keep an inhaled breath long enough to help your stomach compete with the tanned young men on the beach at Gordons Bay any more.

A time to exhale becomes one’s melancholy destiny and the gasps from the young girls will have nothing to do with awe for your body. It will be merely an expression of shock on the sight of how this old man with his red puffed cheeks could become pregnant with quadruplets within so many seconds.

That’s the time brother, when one slips silently back to your favourite retirement village in Somerset West and - because it is not longer possible to easily move out of a bath without help - to walk into a spacious shower to cool down your burning soul.

Oh, before I forget, make sure that one can roll a wheelchair into the shower; this is only possible if they have not built a step at the entrance to the shower. You will at some stage need that wheelchair because I know that you will, like myself, try to outrun those bloody young athletes on the beach and your wife, in stitches of laughter, will have to maneuver you into the shower to get the sand out of your ears and other sensitive places after that big final fall.

And my dear attentive friend, there is also the issue of the toilet.

Developers tend to fancy those dainty ones because they think you will pay more money when you view a retirement house fitted with one of those artistic sculptures.

Not so. After I have finally raised my white flag on the beach and have bid the fair young maidens and brutish lads adieu, I have started to lecture on the practicalities of a well designed toilet structure.

Once again I have the ladies in awe, but they seem to nod at my good advice and insights even at times when I do not have much to say. But it remains a fact; older knees just do not bend easily to do the cha cha or anything else either.

A toilet should thus, in retirement village context, not be minute. It is really not very flattering to be lowered by steady hands onto an elusive toilet seat.

A raised toilet seat is a must and I always end my well received lectures with this loaded statement. Many a word of appreciative praise has reached my ears on this wise declaration of a basic and profound truth.

Oh yes dear reader, handles. Handles in a retirement home are absolutely a must. Somehow one tends to become dizzier in the more mature years.

It also seems so that the six o’clock airplane at times starts circling way before its landing time and if one becomes confined to the space of the bathroom for some reason, handles in the shower, in the bath and at the sides of the toilet can become a great supporting friend.

Lastly I have to make a remark about the space inside bathrooms. If that six o’clock jet circles too near to your sonar system and you decide to make a wheelie or two on your wheelchair in the bathroom, there should be ample space for that. Nothing is so displeasing as a train carriage of a bathroom when one needs to steer or to be steered into that hallowed and much needed personal space.

With these few remarkable facts I will now leave you dear reader and I sincerely hope that you will attend one of my lectures that I plan for the various continents…

The issue of retirement villages will be from now on be my wild card. No more wild competition on the white beaches and under the watchful eye of Table Mountain with silly youngsters.

My talks on retirement villages in Cape Town and for argument sake the moon, have become quite a personal thrill. And in the end attentive people tend to look with new eyes at the bathrooms in retirement developments.

I bring them such joy when they realize the difference between a well planned and comfortable bathroom in retirement and the ones that depress and compress both physically and psychologically.

Can’t ask for anything more.

- Wim van der Walt

The retirement villages in the Cape Town area are particularly in demand and one should consider carefully why so many people are heading towards the Western Cape for their retirement, and more specifically towards the retirement villages.

Cape Town retirement is clearly a serious possibility for more and more people.

These are some of the reasons why retirement villages in Somerset West, Paarl and Durbanville are so positively rated:

• In retirement one wants to live in beautiful surroundings and Cape Town offers more than anywhere else: Table Mountain, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Robben Island, various Wine Routes, picturesque coastal villages nearby, Cape Town Waterfront, world class shopping centres, art galleries, movie theatres, golf courses and gyms. Retirement villages in Cape Town, like Waterkloof Lifestyle Estate in Somerset West are located where the mountains, ocean and social amenities are all close by.
• Gated retirement communities provide security and peace of mind to older people that want to relax in a risk free social environment. Retirement is a time to implement a mellow and laid back lifestyle, and one should feel completely safe where you spend lazy summer days and cozy winter nights.
• Although a person in retirement normally enjoys times shared with other mature people, it is just as important to enjoy the privacy and joys of an own home. Modern retirement villages provide just that. One can participate in the active social life at hand in retirement villages, but well planned retirement homes provide the space to live one’s life in pursuit of own hobbies, even part time work and nestling into a very personal relaxed lifestyle.
• The life expectancy of people retiring today is much longer than in previous decades and one can be thoroughly active for many years after retirement. But there may come a time when medical care will be needed. To only start considering a Cape Town retirement village at this a point means that one will have to sell a house again in order to move into a retirement village with health care facilities. Once again sales costs will need to be paid, transfer duties with the purchase of a house in a retirement village, it will take time to get to know the other people living in the retirement village and in general a price shock will await the buyer of a retirement village house as prices increase at a faster rate than other residential property.
• From a psychological point of view living in a retirement village makes sense too. Whilst one still wants to interact with vibrant manifesting life in society, you just don’t want unnecessary noise, immature impulsiveness and overgrown egos spoiling over into your retirement sanctuary. In a retirement village one will find a much wider pool of graceful human beings in an advanced phase of maturity, than generally outside on the streets of evolving life.
• In a (post)modern world people get alienated from healthy interaction with other people as there is an anxious sense of materialistic survival and a frequently nauseating feeling of ‘everything goes’. In retirement one has the time again, or for the first time, to explore the essence of soul life. Life in a retirement village provides inhabitants with a renewed sense of a more substantiated search for meaningful life. A quiet life imbedded in a community of mature people in qualitative interaction with each other as there is no more time to waste. Empathy and compassion on an advanced scale.

In the end the choice of a retirement home remains a very personal issue. One should explore the various retirement villages in Cape Town and only settle down in one of them if the ‘ah-hah!’ sense of a coming home experience can be acknowledged.

You should really know yourself when stepping into retirement. If you have sidestepped your soul right through your life whilst working, looking after children, climbing society’s ladder etc., retirement could really become painful with a superficial choice of a Cape Town retirement village.

It is possible to bypass the essence of what your soul requires right through life, but in retirement it finally wants to be at home in your body. As Thomas said a long time ago, “that which you carry within you will save you… if you listen to it. If you don’t listen to what you carry within you, it will kill you”.

A superficial choice of a retirement village based on emotion will have detrimental effects on your retirement lifestyle and can leave an adult in the most important phase of his or her life with a cancerous spread of emptiness.

When one heads into retirement and has to decide whether and where you want to live in a retirement village in Cape Town, it should be based on something more substantial than the thought of a holiday without end. For sure there will be ample time to play golf, gym, shop, have coffee with friends, going on extended holidays locally and internationally etc.

But eventually one will have to face up to the person looking back at you from the mirror that will be asking a question that cuts to the bone, “Is this it? Will this be all to the end of my life?”.

Retirement should be a time of heightened creativity, contemplation, compassion, healthy living, ploughing wisdom and knowledge back into the fabric of society. A refinery of soul life. Cape Town retirement villages should thus be chosen so that one can live such a life.

If your soul leads you to a deepened existence with books of substance, don’t go living on a golf estate. If your soul pleads with you to take care of broken children, don’t try daily tea and cake sessions in coffee shops. If your soul wants to put a canvass and a paint brush in front of you, do not watch endlessly mediocre TV programs.

The choice of a retirement village in Cape Town must reflect a scaling out of unnecessary material things and superficial encounters so that the soul can come to life again to fill up the vast emptiness with resonating meaning. It will take time to find your own retirement destiny, but then, you will have time to go looking for it. Go down to the ocean and let the sea flow into your veins. Go to the mountains so that the fresh winds could stroke your hair and yearnings.

And then when you eventually come back with a road map of your soul engrained in your being, choose wisely. The ambience of a retirement village, whether it be Waterkloof Estate in Somerset West or Honeydew Retirement Estate in Paarl, should touch your soul if you really want to be contented with the culmination of a well rounded life.

Choose your retirement home so that the living there could be joyful. Lots of sun, room for all your soul chosen activities, an open plan lifestyle to ensure contact and communication between partners, a private outside entertainment area to entertain friends and family, a garage that leads directly into your home, a bathroom that leaves room for comfortable bathing and showering and possibly a TV in the bedroom too in order to satisfy both sport lovers and crime analyst viewers…

Choose your retirement village for its security, provision of good health care (these days specially home care too), a friendly and inviting social facility that offers a classy restaurant or dining room, library, ladies bar, swimming pool, a gym, luscious gardens, beautiful scenery etc.

Choose your retirement village for its location near facilities that you need to feed your soul with. If the ocean does that for you, it must not be further than a quarter of an hour’s drive away from your retirement home. If you love to visit wine farms and restaurants offering exceptional food, make sure that you have easy access. If a good movie, live theatre or book shops move your soul, you and your partner/friends will have to get there without too much hassle. If you want to get involved with organizations that take care of street children, abused women or stray animals, make your stand in a retirement village accordingly. Don’t get isolated. There are people out there that will be in need of your empathy and care. That includes your own children and grandchildren.

If you’re dreaming of one of those popular retirement villages in Cape Town, remember to prepare well. Financially, but even more so to make it an emotionally meaningful experience of existence as it will either destroy the soul or it could be the most fulfilling time of your life.

The choice is yours.

There is a huge stream of baby boomers heading into retirement and they look different from the old timers before them!

Mature adults nowadays have a much longer lifespan than their parents did and they do expect (and demand!) that their retirement lifestyle should reflect this vibrant energy flowing into a river of experiences.

Mentally and physically they are ready to capture the phrase, “Why should youth be wasted on the young?”. And boy, just take time to watch them putting the young ones who have a diluted sense of life to shame!

Gone are the dinosaurs and old age homes. Yes, Elvis has left the building and is living in a fine retirement village somewhere in the greater Cape Town area. Eat your heart out Mick Jagger. Stop that silly shimmering Madonna.

So, what are we talking about when we contemplate retirement or living in a retirement village in Cape Town?

For a start, think about the young boy or girl that you were a decade or two ago… school, democratically decided, wasn’t so nice, but a holiday in Cape Town near the beaches of Gordons Bay,The Strand and Blouberg Strand offered angelic options.

Or perhaps slightly more profane than that, but surely days of golden beaches, lazy lingering through sun drenched afternoons, great food in laid back restaurants, vibrant music and hordes of movies and theatres were vividly visualized.

Amongst some other activities not mentioned in front of children and degenerating prunes.

Cape Town hasn’t changed! It still offers all this and much more for people retiring in Cape Town and the Western Province of South Africa!

Nowadays one has the choice to live in a retirement village in Somerset West like Waterkloof Estate that will offer a connoisseur’s experience of well designed and architecturally pleasing homes.

Or Honeydew Retirement Village in Paarl, to be near the greatest wine farms on this planet.

Alternatively one can retire to a free standing home anywhere on the coastline, while in the meantime securing a retirement village property - should the decision be made later in life to move into one of the highly demanded retirement villages of the Western Cape.

Just think about this for a moment. Would you like to wake up in retirement and have the choice to visit great art galleries, a conglomerate of shopping centres, art nouveau movie theatres, have a work-out in a gym or visit an avalanche of book shops?

Not bad hey? But you can do all of that in Germiston, Berlin or Pietermaritzburg too. Cape Town offers this, but much more…

There is this laid back social culture creeping through colourful street life, nestled up against Table Mountain and rolling down to the beaches of Camps Bay and Clifton.

The smells, the sounds, the dance of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean culminating at Cape Point, that cannot be offered by a retirement lifestyle far from the ocean and the mesmerizing blue mountains of the Western Cape.

It will be extremely difficult to get bored whilst living along whales, swelling grape vineyards, experiencing some of the wittiest specimens of the human race and watching the growing tide of national and international people flooding Cape Town for a great retirement lifestyle.

But should it happen that one needs more than this, the Great Karoo with its ancient history or the spectacular Garden Route will be but a day trip away.

A flight further the Kruger National Game Park will always be whispering a welcome to humans searching for their roots.

Once can embellish about so much more, but the start of it all will be to stake your claim in a Cape Town retirement lifestyle and/or a retirement village. The rest will follow.

See you soon Mick. We do have top notch medical facilities and security too, should you over indulge. Even, dare we say - frail care.

Ask Elvis in his Cape Town retirement village about this - but later. He is busy watching the whaling giants surfacing in False bay. And then he will be rocking up to Robben Island.

No kidding!

Wim van der Walt

The story of Robben Island started in 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck landed in Cape Town on orders from Dutch East Indian Company to establish a post where boats could harbour on way to the East.

He almost immediately started to use the Island, which is only a few kilometers from the mainland, as a place where trouble makers could be kept away from the growing community. The first political prisoner, Autshumato, was exiled in 1658, simply because he was taking back cattle that his people believed to have been unfairly confiscated by European settlers. Prisoners were also brought from other countries. Most of them strong-willed rebels that were removed from their societies before they could stir too much trouble.

They were soon joined by ordinary criminals, the mentally ill, lepers and even prostitutes that could spread diseases. Island life became very harsh with no kindness felt or offered. The Robben Island map began to display the first lines of its culture of alienation.

Long before it’s most famous prisoner, Nelson Mandela, another great indigenous leader, Makana, was held captive on Robben Island. He was a strong Xhosa leader that fought against the British over land issues during the early part of the eighteen hundreds, but surrendered in order to negotiate a meaningful peace. He was unceremoniously transported to the Island and died there far removed from his people.

During the reign of the Apartheid regime, discrimination against non-white people escalated and basic human rights became non-existent. Many fighters for freedom were imprisoned on Robben Island during those dark decades. They faced an iron hand and human interaction was kept to the minimum. There is one heart-gripping story where the political prisoners where marched past the house where Robert Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement. At that moment he was in the garden and when he saw the other prisoners he got onto his knees, picked up a hand full of sand and let it filter through his fingers as a solitary gesture of communication.

Nelson Mandela, one of the world’s most revered leaders, spent 27 years in jail, most of that on Robben Island, for his participation in the cause for freedom. When the world community met this remarkable man after so many years in jail, they were amazed. Here was a man whose life had been effectively robbed from him and instead of an angry man, we all saw a generous man emerging with steady eyes and a mischievous smile. Robben Island that should have killed the human spirit, has only succeeded in producing an emphatic healer of a divided country.

A visit to Cape Town cannot be concluded without getting on the boat from the Cape Town Waterfront for one of the Robben Island tours. These trips involve a walk in and around the infamous and at the same time famous jail that kept many different kinds of people behind bars.

If one wants to have a daily visual encounter with Robben Island, Sea Lodge Luxury Apartments at Bloubergstrand will be your nearest residential location. Your view from Sea Lodge on Table Mountain will be similar to the view all those prisoners had of this mesmerizing mountain over the decades.

You can thus participate, though faintly so, in the yearning of those men and women that were chained to Robben Island.

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Local politicians like Jan Smuts contemplated the future whilst watching the hustle and bustle of city life far below (others continue that tradition up to the present day). Lovers still find quiet space up there that augments their sense of something special. Tourists stand around breathless in reaction to the immense ocean that weave away over the horizon, and locals laze away stolen private time. There are various telescopes on the mountain to view Cape Town, Table Bay, False Bay and Robben Island.

The mountain is alive at all times. People are doing their own thing, but so is the abundant wild life, shying away from human beings invading their space. There is a great variety of wild flowers and “fynbos” (about 1470 different species of plants and some of them only to be found on Table Mountain). Visitors in a hurry will miss the quiet beauty that doesn’t shout, that whispers it’s way.

Over 16 million people have already visited Table Mountain, Cape Town. The cable cars in flight up and down are adding to that figure endlessly. More than 600 000 thousand visitors have been carried up and down per year since the start in 1929. The Table Mountain cableway must be one of the most well-known tourist attractions in the world.

The summit of the mountain is about 1080 square metres and quite flat at the top. From side to side it is about 3 kilometres. The more energetic visitors will find about 350 different walking trails, all of them providing breathtaking views - but some should not be explored without an informed guide. A glass of wine at the restaurant on top during a summer sunset will not be easily forgotten. Few visitors come away without the feeling that the soul of this mountain has bestowed something lasting to their consciousness.

On the other side of the mountain, one will find the Table Mountain National Park that stretches from Signal Hill to Cape Point in the south. Views of beautiful valleys, False Bay, soaring cliffs with the huge variety in fauna and flora will entice the visitor time after time.

At the end of every visit, most men and women turn away from this spectacular beauty with one last glance towards Robben Island where Nelson Mandela, one of the world’s most beloved leaders, spent decades in jail and left the island as a sage.

The best point to view Table Mountain is most likely from Bloubergstrand and owners of the luxurious apartments at Sea Lodge, to be build in 2009 will most likely have an unbeatable view of this famous Mountain.

Why rely on a South African Table Mountain post card, if you can see its wonder with your own eyes, day after day?

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If the rational mind and the romantic soul force you to answer yes to these questions, then you will have to consider buying a Sea Lodge Luxury Beachfront Apartment on the coastline of Cape Town’s Table Bay, just outside the sought after Bloubergstrand.

• Only 24 apartments will be built on this exquisite beachfront site
• Views of Table Mountain, the Atlantic Ocean, and Robben Island on offer
• Prices will most likely range round about R 4 890 000

In the 1970’s the world famous ‘maestro’ Terrence Millard trained race horses on this very soil and for that purpose he built his own horse training track, which now lies right in front of the proposed Sea Lodge apartments. Whilst the horses strained their muscles on the beach to become the eventual winners of many of the country’s main races, a whole other world existed just a few kilometers from this farm.

For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, across a narrow strip of sea from Cape Town’s Sea Lodge, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society.

Robben Island came to symbolise, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.

Nelson Mandela is the most famous prisoner to be sent to Robben Island but there were others too like the man that was kept apart from all the other prisoners because they perceived him to be a too dangerous presence, Robert Sobukwe.

After 27 years Nelson Mandela was released and shortly thereafter, at the first true democratic election in South Africa, he became President of South Africa. Sea Lodge in Cape Town is the closest point to Robben Island from the main land and as the owner of an apartment at Sea Lodge will be viewing the island, those men had their eyes on this nearest patch of their beloved country.

There is another intriguing chapter on the times that treaded by the Blouberg area. In the winter of 1773 the ship De Jonge Thomas was anchored in the bay with 207 people on board when a storm arrived. The wind was so strong that it broke the ship’s anchor ropes and blew the ship aground on a sandbank.

The then governor of the Cape sent 30 soldiers to the beach to see what they could do to assist in the rescue of the crew.

Christiaan Ludwig Woltemade was one of the soldiers.

While he was on the beach, his father Wolraad Woltemade arrived. It was the 1st. day of June 1773. Already a man aged between 60 and 70 years, he came to brought his son some food. Wolraad Woltemade was a dairy farmer in the area.

When Wolraad arrived on the beach and saw that nothing was being done by the soldiers to rescue the crew, he decided that he could not be a passive spectator to this, and so he decided to do something to help. He took his horse and rushed into the sea and swam it out to the ship where he had two crew members jump into the sea and hang onto his horse while it swam back to land dragging them to safety.

Wolraad undertook this trip seven times bringing fourteen men to safety.

Unfortunately on the eighth attempt so many sailors were keen to be rescued that they jumped into the sea and in their panic clung to the horse, which by this time was exhausted and unable to pull them to safety.

In the chaos that ensued the horse and Wolraad Woltemade disappeared under the waves and both lost their lives.

Wolraad Woltemade became a hero and is remembered for his bravery and his commitment not to stand by when fellow human beings were at risk.

Sea Lodge overlooks the bay where this amazing incident occurred. You will be able to tell these stories to your guests as you sip cocktails on your balcony or host a dinner with the view of Table Mountain glittering through your balcony window.

We invite you to live on this land of legends, to explore the nearby beach and to do your surfing with the men, boys, women and girls that come from afar to dare the waves at Big Bay.

Should you be less action inclined, it will take you less than half an hour to go frequenting the Cape Town Waterfront, attend movie theatres or enjoying the famous Cape Town night life. Cape Town International Airport is also less than half an hour from Sea Lodge.

What will it be? Settling for second best, or reserving your apartment at Sea Lodge to experience a perfectly situated beach front existence?

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Luxurious apartments like the new development, Sea Lodge, scheduled to be built in 2009 just north of Bloubergstrand, provide the latecomer to the Cape Town cosmopolitan scene with another chance to become part of this exiting way of life.

From your balcony at Sea Lodge, sipping a Cape Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, you can entertain your visitors with stories about the Cape Castle or the fierce battle between the devil and Van Donk to out smoke each other there on the crest of Table Mountain. Or recount the tale of how Wolraad Woltemade went with his horse into the icy winter ocean in 1773 to save frantic sailors from a stranded ship. Of course, the most precious story of all is how Nelson Mandela, the hero of our time, was held captive for more than two decades on Robben Island, just a patch of ocean away from your Cape Town apartment.

Table Mountain cast against the setting sun will take your breath away and it will only come back if you dare to surf the waves at Big Bay. And when you come alive again with renewed zest for life, you can drive into the city to spend time at the Cape Town Waterfront, the night clubs, the theatres or just taking the cable car out against the slopes of Table Mountain to view the city and your real estate domain at Sea Lodge across the blue waters of Table Bay.

So many South African beaches to spend your days at…there is Blouberg Strand, Clifton, Camps Bay with its brimming sidewalk restaurants, Sandy Bay (a surprise will be waiting there), Llandudno, Hout Bay and Kommetjie. On the Indian Ocean side there is Muizenberg or Simons Town, while the other side of False Bay plays host to Bikini Beach at Gordons Bay. This just to mention a few. The West Coast with its laid back manner will for sure draw your attention to Yzerfontein, Langebaan and Paternoster at some stage.

From your apartment’s balcony you can have your morning coffee, be mesmerized by Table Mountain’s many specters of beauty and decide on a day at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, visiting the National Art Gallery and having tea in The Gardens afterwards. Or you can decide to visit Cape Point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, drive through the Table Mountain National Park or just turn your car’s nose towards the Cape wine farms and visit those attractions against the hills and valleys of Durbanville, Paarl, Stellenbosch and Franschoek.

But then again, you can decide to stay put in your apartment at Sea Lodge, enjoying its upmarket finishes, read a book or watching TV with Table Mountain’s presence gliding towards you from the other side of Table Bay.

Cape Town will get to you, Table Mountain will arrest your mind and Robben Island will continue to haunt you with its powerful history. All in sight of your apartment at Sea Lodge, just north of Bloubergstrand. You will barely have time to visit the rest of the Western Cape or other areas of this vast and beautiful country. The Kruger National Park? Next year! The Golden Gate? The year thereafter! The spectacular Garden Route? Maybe next month! The Great Karoo? Who knows when you will get to it!

Confronted with all these options, nothing will materialize if you don’t commit to swift action to secure one of these luxurious beach front apartments in Cape Town. See whether you can beat the film stars and sporting heroes in this coming race to secure a unit. My bet is on the people with a nose for class!

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• Do I have enough money to consider any retirement village in South Africa, or should I stick to the ones that are clearly more affordable?
• Does my financial advisor stress the detrimental effect of inflation after retirement enough?
• Do I choose a retirement village near my children and grand children?
• Do I choose a retirement village that is located in an area that is embedded in my heart and that sets my soul free?
• Should I buy a retirement apartment or a retirement house?
• How do my doctor and I rate my health in order to establish whether I can be independent or would need health care soon? Or my spouse’s health?
• Will I be near my various fields of interests, should I choose this or that retirement village in south Africa?
• Will my spouse be near his or her fields of interests when a decision is made?
• Can I be happy if she or he will be decidedly unhappy at the choice of a retirement village?
• How safe would we be in our first choice retirement village?
• Will children, friends and family be able to visit us at our favoured retirement village, or will it be too way out?
• Does it make sense to buy into a retirement village prior to retirement and then to rent the house or apartment out?

Perhaps you can assist us in our endeavour to find out what people heading towards retirement rate as the most or the least important in their choice of retirement villages?

Please rate the importance of the following from 5 for the most important to 1 for the least important factor and forward it to us at info@byron-yeatsproperties.com. We will provide you with some feedback in due course.

Thank you for your participation. Your contribution will be added to the valuation of other participants, so that we can inform developers what people really consider most or least important when considering a retirement village in South Africa.

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They acknowledge the fact that they will need more constant health care and tighter security at some stage, but they envisage a more freelance approach to retirement initially. They want to interact directly with society and are looking forward to having a good and enjoyable time whilst in reasonable strength. People with this approach to retirement in South Africa, will then most likely resettle and buy a house or a plot in order to have their retirement home near a favoured place like the ocean, or somewhere where the climate is mild and the soul satisfied.

Friends and family become more and more important as time goes by. If a couple nearing retirement make the choice to retire where their children are, they might lose out on the proximity of friends and emotional loss could occur. The best choice would be to settle into retirement where both friends and children are nearby.

If they however move at a later stage in life into a retirement village that offers health care and more security, they begin all over as strangers in the new environment. That can be debilitating too and older people do not like too much stress and feeling unsettled.

They can therefore consider buying a house or apartment in a retirement village of their choice and then plan to rent it out until they themselves want to occupy it later on. As owners, they will become acquainted with the culture of the retirement village and they might just be able to convince friends still out at their preferred retirement spot, to purchase a house or apartment in their chosen retirement village too.

This way, they can look forward to a more intimate friendship at a time when there is less wanderlust and more need for slower and qualitative time. At the same time they secure a retirement village house or apartment at today’s prices, knowing that demand tend to drive retirement property continuously higher.

A two step approach might be the right modus operandi for people with a more individualistic approach to retirement. Owning a unit in Summervale Retirement Village in Gordons Bay or a retirement house in Stil Bay, might just be the perfect answer to your approach to retirement. And it makes financial sense too.

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