Real estate is key to solving the problem of aging population

Real estate is the key to tackling the social problem of the rapidly aging population in the Netherlands, across Europe and beyond, according to Naboth van den Broek, founder and managing partner, SevenAges Capital Management.

The company focuses on renovating and working with existing buildings. “There is just a lot of really good real estate around already and by repurposing it for this generation we think that we can have the kind of impact that we want to have socially, because a lot of those buildings are in exactly the kinds of locations – downtown, beautiful areas outside cities – where we want to be anyway and where guests want to be,” van den Broek told Real Asset Insight’s Richard Betts.

He added that renovating existing buildings is also better from an environmental perspective because in refurbishing them they can be made more sustainable.

Seven Ages is a new company which van den Broek describes as “impact centric” rather than impact driven or ESG focused.

“What I mean by that is that we’re not about the last slide in a presentation that says ‘oh, and by the way, we’re also focused on ESG’,” he said.

While the company is focused on senior living, it is not involved in the care-intensive end of healthcare.

“We do focus on low levels of care,” he said. “There is a really large proportion of the aging population who don’t really need that much care.”

And he added: “A lot of people actually stay at home longer these days and they’re taken care of by a family member or by a nurse who comes around a couple of times a week or once a day, but they don’t need full-time care at a very high level the way you would in a full-on nursing home or in a hospital.”