This was a question posed to me on social media a few weeks
ago, following my article about our mature members of society and the fact many
retirees feel 'trapped' in their homes.
After working hard for many years and buying a home, these
homeowners’ children have flown the nest and now they are left to rattle round in
a big house. Many feel trapped in these
big family homes, and hence, I dubbed these home owning mature members of our
society ‘Generation Trapped’.
So, should we force our senior citizen homeowners to
downsize?
In my original article, I suggested that we as a society should
encourage, through building, tax breaks and social acceptance that it’s a good
thing to downsize, and something not to be negatively considered as downgrading.
But should the government force senior citizens?
One of the biggest reasons senior citizens move home is for
their health, or sometimes rather, their lack of it. Looking at the statistics for Stamford, of
the 2,917 homeowners who are 65 years and older, (whilst 1,742 of them
described themselves in good or very good health), a sizeable 926 home owning senior
citizens described themselves as in fair health and 249 in bad or very bad
health.
That’s 8.54% of Stamford home owning senior citizens considering
themselves to be suffering from poor health
But if you look at the figures for the whole of South
Kesteven District Council (not just Stamford), there are only 471 specialist
retirement homes that one could buy (if they were in fact for sale) and 374
homes available to rent from the council and other specialist providers (again,
you would be waiting for dead man’s shoes to get your foot in the door) and
many older homeowners wouldn’t feel comfortable with the idea of renting a
retirement property after enjoying the security of owning their own home for
most of their adult lives.
My intuition tells me the majority ‘would be’ Stamford downsizers
could certainly afford to move but are ‘staying put’ in bigger family homes
because they can't find a suitable smaller property. There simply aren’t
enough bungalows for the healthy older members of the Stamford population and
specialist retirement properties for the ones who aren’t in such good health ...
we
need to be proactive and build more ‘age and need-appropriate’ homes in Stamford.
The government's
recently published Housing White Paper could have solved so many problems with
the UK housing market, including the issue of homing our ageing population. Instead, it ended up feeling annoyingly
ambiguous. Forcing
our older generation to move with such measures as a punitive taxation (say a
tax on wasted bedrooms for people who are retired) would be the wrong thing to
do. Instead of using ‘the stick’, maybe
the government could use ‘the carrot’ and offer tax breaks tactics for
downsizers?
As a
population, we are living longer and constantly growing with increased birth
rates and immigration. More houses and
apartments need to be built in the Stamford area, especially more specialist
retirement properties and bungalows. The
government had a golden opportunity with the White Paper, but it was found to
be sadly lacking.
To my Stamford
and Rutland property investor readers, until this issue gets sorted in the
coming decades, do seriously consider renovating and refurbishing older
bungalows, people will pay handsomely for them either for sale or rental
purposes.
If you are considering downsizing, please contact me
to discuss further.
David Crooke - 01780 484 554
david@upp-property.co.uk
Owner and managing director
Understanding People & Property
SALES & LETTING AGENTS
Stamford: 01780 484 554
Rutland: 01572 725 825
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