Towards the end of 2012 my wife and I made the brave decision to start the process of giving up our lavish lifestyle of having a beautiful large house in Somerset West as well as an even more beautiful seaside holiday house. This decision came after my wife had a serious health setback and after we had the horrific experience of facing some aggressive burglars in the early morning hours, when we were extremely lucky not to be injured. This was the proverbial final straw and we decided that at our age it was time to make a move.
And then the search began.
- Where to?
- What were our requirements?
- What were we prepared to give up in this process?
- What were our priorities, and
- What were we prepared to invest in our new beginnings?
We realised that what we were about to do was probably one of the most important decisions we had faced up until then. At our age this would be our last and final move, and we could obviously not risk making the wrong move – not only as far as finding the right area, province and town, but also the right retirement village and, above all, making a safe capital investment with minimum risk at our age. And so we started looking at established, as well as new, retirement villages, from Knysna in the East – where both of us were born – to Hout Bay in the West and everything in between, finding nothing that really excited us.
Back in Somerset West we happen to come across an article in one of the local newspapers about a brand new retirement village called The Somerset Lifestyle and Retirement Village being developed by Okkie Potgieter’s Westacre Property Group. Both my wife and I did not only happen to know Okkie personally for many years, but also had first-hand experience of the quality of workmanship by the Westacre Group in a number of gated villages they had constructed in Somerset West. So, the obvious next step in our search was to phone Okkie personally to find out more about this prestigious development of his.
On arrival at The Somerset Lifestyle and Retirement Village on a stunning early March morning in 2013, we found a vacant piece of land with an impressive perimeter fence, one security guard on duty and one brand new solitude house with a Zozo hut next to it, which served as the site sales office. The rest of the property was barren land, except for the paved streets and sidewalks. Okkie personally showed us around and although we were impressed with the layout of the house and the quality of the workmanship, we suddenly were confronted with the reality of scaling down from what we were used to, to a relatively small house in a retirement village.
Considering the history of some new retirement developments which have failed in the past, our main concern was the fact that no other plot or house in this new village had yet been sold, and it would be a huge risk for the first buyer to make a substantial investment in a new maiden retirement development. While quite a few potential buyers were showing some interest in The Somerset at that time, not one was prepared to take the plunge by investing in this new development – except us, who decided that this was the opportunity we have been looking for to make a new beginning.
To read more about Freehold Title Ownership at The Somerset, click here.
Author: Marius Kritzinger
