This was a question posed to me on social media a few weeks ago, after my article about our mature members of Grantham society and the fact many retirees feel trapped in their homes. After working hard for many years and buying a home for themselves and their family, the children have subsequently flown the nest and now they are left to rattle round in a big house. Many feel trapped in their big homes (hence I dubbed these Grantham home owning mature members of our society, ‘Generation Trapped’.
So, should we force OAP Grantham homeowners to downsize?
Well the original article, I suggested that we (society) should encourage, through building, tax breaks and social acceptance that it’s a good thing to downsize, but the Government force OAP’s?
Well, one of the biggest reasons OAP’s move home is health (or lack of it)
Looking at the statistics for Grantham, of the 4,833 Homeowners whom are 65 years and older, whilst 2,650 of them described themselves in good or very good health, a sizeable 1,676 home owning OAPs described themselves as in fair health and 507 in bad or very bad health.
10.49% of Grantham home owning OAP’s are in poor health
But of you look at the figures for whole of South Kesteven District Council (not just Grantham), as whole, 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 wouldnt 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 Grantham downsizers could certainly afford to move but are staying put in bigger family homes because they can't find a suitable smaller property. The fact is .. there simply aren’t enough bungalows for the healthy members of the Grantham population and specialist retirement properties for the ones who aren’t in such good health .. we need to build more houses in Grantham.
The Government's Housing White Paper, published a few weeks ago, could have solved so many problems with the UK housing market, including the issue of homing our aging 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 whom are retired) would be the wrong thing to do. Instead of the stick – the Government could use the carrot tactics and offered tax breaks for downsizers. Who knows – but something has to happen?
.. and come to think about it, isn’t the word ‘downsize’ such an awful word? I prefer to use the word ‘decent-size’ instead of ‘down-size’- as the other phrase feels like they are lowering themselves, like they are having downgrade themselves their retirement (and let’s be frank – no one likes to be downgraded).
So, what I suggest all the homeowners and property owning public of Grantham? The simple fact is we are living longer as a population and constantly growing with increased birth rates and immigration. More houses and apartments needs to be built, especially more specialist retirement properties and bungalows. The Government had a golden opportunity with the White Paper – and were sadly found lacking.
And a message to my Grantham property investor readers whilst this issue gets sorted in the coming decade(s) – Maybe seriously consider doing up older bungalows – people will pay handsomely for them – be they for sale or even rent? Just a thought?
