Aged care operators’ results “strong” with Summerset sales up 14%…

9th April 2025 By Paul Yandall | paul@propertyticker.co.nz | @propertyticker

Summerset Group says sales over the first three months of 2025 were up 14% on the same period last year.

The retirement village operator reported 290 sales of occupation right agreement homes for the quarter ending 31 March 2025, comprising 132 new sales and 158 resales.

“Total sales for Q1 this year were 14% higher than the same time last year, with resales increasing by 31%, while new sales were down slightly year-on-year,” Summerset chief executive Scott Scoullar said on Tuesday.

“This is a pleasing start to the year, January was quite slow, as is typical while our prospective residents are on holiday, but we had a strong February and March.

“As we move into Q2 we have a solid pipeline of contracts, which we’ll be working through to settlement. We’ve seen a 32% year-on-year increase of contracted new sale stock compared to Q1 2024.”

Scoullar said Summerset’s geographical diversity continued to show its strength in Q1 with almost every region in New Zealand seeing increased sales year-on-year.

“We achieved a good balance of sales throughout the country with 50% of our sales coming from outside Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch during this quarter.”

He added that the company remained on track to build 650-730 homes across New Zealand and Australia in 2025, including delivery of its first village centre in Australia at Cranbourne North.

The company reported in February a record underlying profit $206.4m for the year to December 2024, up 8% on the previous period.

Total revenue jumped 17.5% to $319.9m but net profit after tax fell 20.1% to $339.84m, with Summerset citing the fair value movement of investment properties recognised in 2024, relative to 2023, for the decline.