How does assisted living fit into elderly care?  Adam Scott, at consultancy Mansfield Advisors, reckons many elderly go through two retirements. The first at 60 plus is a continuation of your middle-aged lifestyle. The second in your mid to late seventies, perhaps after illness, is closer to your children.  This is where most assisted living options play.

The problem with assisted living for investors is the time-scale.  It can take an ivestment horizon of 15 years with three years to sell the development and probabaly another seven years for churn rates to stabilise. And these are effectively property plays, where service charges are typically capped and the resident paying a fee of 10-30% of the total when they sell on.

Some groups are growing fast in Europe.  In the UK, PegasusLife, backed by Oaktree,  has 35 sites today and aims to have 60 by the end of 2016. In France Seniorale is building gated communities. Tertianum is active in Germany.

Scott says that, despite planning restrictions, assisted living is starting to take off. Roger Black, creative director at  PegasusLife says: “We need to get up to scale fast so when things open up, we are at a position of strength. I liken it to the student housing market which has exploded over the last couple of years. What’s coming for old people is going to be huge.”