Monday 11/13/2023
First thing up was the monthly Resident Association meeting. No big news there. I attended remotely, on Zoom, for the first time since the pandemic because I wanted the time to read the materials for the next meeting.
With that out of the way I got in the car and scooted down to FOPAL to do the monthly cleanup of my section after the sale last weekend. I pulled three boxes of books off the shelf because they had survived four sale days without selling. There was only one box of donations, which I processed. Then I grabbed a couple of energy bars at the store and ate them for lunch, getting back to CH in time for my 12:30 meeting.
This was the Strategic Planning Committee meeting, the subject being to hear the initial report from the consultants that were employed. They had done a very thorough job of evaluating our market and how our pricing does or doesn’t fit with the demographics of our market. All of which, in my humble opinion, was a waste of time for a simple reason. We are full. We have 98% occupancy, plus over 40 people have paid $10,000 for the privilege of being at the top of our waiting list.
There was much nattering about how “the market” is moving toward larger units. When they hold focus groups, what people tell the marketers is, they want two-bedroom apartments that have full kitchens and private washer/dryers. According to the consultant, new and planned new senior facilities no longer include studio apartments at all; the smallest units being built are 1br.
(The laundry thing is especially annoying to me. We have a nice, clean, functional laundry room on every floor. It’s a 30 second walk from my door, and I’m at the end of the hall. I use it every second Wednesday. What an insane waste of resources it would be, for me to have a personal washer and dryer and iron and ironing board, to use twice a month! What are people thinking when they tell focus groups that life would be intolerable if they had to share laundry facilities?)
Anyway, this is presented as a problem for Channing House because over 50% of our units are studios, and we have very few 2br units. So our building is completely out of step with the times. Oh dear or dear whatever shall we do?
All of which hand-wringing completely ignores the simple fact that WE ARE FULL and that we have a list of people who have PAID MONEY to be on the WAIT LIST.
The consultants went to great length to define and analyze our Primary Market Area — basically, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Stanford and a bit of Mountain View. In that area they actually counted 3,000 households headed by people over 75 with incomes over $100K — i.e., people who could afford to move into Channing House today. In order to remain full, all Channing House needs is about 15 people per year to fill new vacancies. That’s 0.5% of the available market! — a market which the consultants say is growing at about 1% per year. All we need is to locate that one half of one percent of the eligible buyers who don’t crave a 2br unit with full kitchen and laundry (i.e. sane people). Out of 3,000, I think it should be feasible to locate 15 such people a year.
Channing House does not have a marketing problem, and today’s meeting was a large waste of time. The consultant’s work was not wasted as it definitely showed in numbers, that we don’t have a marketing problem. The market is full of people who will buy what we offer.
Anyway.
After practicing guitar — today was a day when I sounded and played like shit — it was off to CHM for a celebration of us volunteers. It was a moderately nice event. Everybody clapped for everybody’s achievements, which have been many and genuine.
Codgerville 