Pensioners to be encouraged to downsize

As more and more things crop up in my bungalow I do regret every penny of the thousands I spent 'doing my house up' to sell.

I would only recommend servicing your boiler regularly, one less question and possible price reduction negotiation from prospective buyers.

"I’d have to do my house up to sell" I was strongly advised NOT to repaint or install a new kitchen, because the likely buyers of my house would be people who wanted a 'do it upper'. Such people will not pay over the odds for a house with e.g. a brand new kitchen. They want to put their own stamp on the place. In the event the bids all came from folks who had plans to extend, put in a stair and have rooms in the loft or completely change the huge garden. Money spent on cosmetic changes prior to sale would have been wasted.

My house is probably worth 270k (if that). A smaller house would probably cost 200k and I’d have to do my house up to sell, pay legal fees and probably have to spend money on the new house. If I moved into a retirement place I couldn’t take my dog and they’re very difficult to sell on. Some stay in the market for ages. I’d swap with my son whose house is quite small but he doesn’t want to live here.

So Bossyrossy, in the hope that this big house is going to give your children a wonderful inheritance, how do you heat and maintain it in the meantime? I see a lot of properties on Rightmove which have clearly belonged to an elderly person and they are being sold off cheaply because so much work is needed. I look at the photos and pity the person who lived in such a dreadfully dreary, cheerless (and often damp) place. Such a property is doing anything but gaining in value.

I don’t see it like that Bossyrossy. I’d rather sell and give the surplus to my children now so they can get better houses while they are younger. By the time they are in their forties and fifties, which is when most people’s parents die, they don’t need it so much as their lives and careers are more established.

So you downsize and make a tidy profit. What do you invest this windfall in? There is nothing that will give you the same interest the equivalent of the rise in property prices, which when you push up the daisies, your children can inherit and enjoy.

AGAA4

I found my large 4 bedroom house became too much for me to manage on my own. It also had big gardens front and back.
I downsized to a 2 bedroomed flat. All the outside work is done by contractors. My flat isn't tiny having good sized rooms and we have lovely views.
I was pleased that my large house was bought by a young family with 3 children. All the rooms would be used again.
It was a wrench in a way leaving and I totally understand people who want to stay in their homes.
It just wasn't practical for me.

I think a lot of older people come to feel this way in time, when practicality takes over from sentiment.
I do wonder though where all our ‘stuff’ will go if we downsize to an apartment ( it will have to be prised from my cold dead hands.)?

We downsized from a seven bedroom three storey Victorian house to a three bedroom bungalow 14 years ago and we still haven't unpacked some of the packing cases we brought with us!

Struthruth

I have lived in my family house for over 40 years. It is very central but I would like to move to have a smaller garden. So difficult to find a suitable property. I may spend the cost of moving getting gardening help.
Lots of retirement properties going up but they all of communal gardens and I would find not being able to garden so difficult. Retirement properties with gardening facilities are needed.
Bungalows are like hens teeth in this part of the world.

I don’t understand why so many retirement properties have communal gardens. There are some near me. Sweet little properties but do they not realise many of us have cats and dogs.

I have lived in my family house for over 40 years. It is very central but I would like to move to have a smaller garden. So difficult to find a suitable property. I may spend the cost of moving getting gardening help.
Lots of retirement properties going up but they all of communal gardens and I would find not being able to garden so difficult. Retirement properties with gardening facilities are needed.
Bungalows are like hens teeth in this part of the world.

It really takes the biscuit! I agree with the OP. We do not want to live in a complex full of old people. There are too many such places. When you move into one, everyone is friendly until they know all your life story, then move on to some other newbie. Please spare a few minutes as I explain just how the elderly are exploited. I suspect the MP knows how lucrative persuading an elderly widow that she should not be 'rattling around' in a house built for families. If detached houses are being converted into two, presumably an elderly person would not be 'rattling around'. I would like to move, but I need to buy another house, so cannot undersell,. There are so many developers and letting agents here that there is no hope of finding a buyer outside the town.

In 2018 a house two doors down sold for £485K. It is smaller than mine and link detached. Before I invited a local agent, I wrote to one of those companies who buy houses quickly at 80% of the value. They offered me £450K, and I thought I would get £550K for mine so signed a contract with a local agent. That offer from the home buying lot came in a large envelope with THEIR LARGE LOGO. It was open when it came to me. That agent did not honour the 14 working day's grace for signing a contract in the home. I was not given copies of any information they sent out to potential buyers. The description was '3 bed detached house in need of modernisation'. No photos, nothing about the town. My house is detached with four bedrooms and apart from redecorating the bathrooms (two and a shower room and cloakroom) and the kitchen, there was no work to be done. 6 weeks in I received an offer of £450K, well below the recommended £550K.

Two months later the estate agency changed manager. I did not know the new one, We had never met and he had never seen over the house. In conversation I refused to accept the £450K offer. I said why should I? It is the same offer the homebuyers offered at 80%. Then he became verbally abusive and half rose from his seat. I asked him to leave or I will phone the police. He did. 10 days later he said he had an offer of the asking price £550K.

I did not believe it. He refused to tell me the name of the people who offered it, because I had searched Companies House for the viewers who came and found they were not genuine. They have a duty in law to tell the seller the name of the buyer and let them know if they can afford it. They did not. I kept asking about the buyers without success, They sent no one else and when the contract ended, the offer was withdrawn the next day. When I discovered the names of the couple, they too had their own property agency. I discovered too that the new manager of that estate agency had started up his own letting company less than a year before and had borrowed on a property just 3 months previously. That couple who posed as buyers was already living on the same estate. I did not list the house again.

They did not expect an elderly widow to even have a computer, let alone know how to use it. Those youngish people had no idea that you can google any name and discover who they are, even less go into Companies House and see what pies they have their fingers in. I discovered some were directors of companies connected to East Europe, that some were connected to Kenya, and even more were suspect. When I discovered their addresses from Companies House, few of them were living in houses worth much.

At one time, I engaged the services of a PI who told me that the viewers I queried and were not in Companies house, did not exist. Other names I was given were directors of the same agency but different branches. I think it is against the law for agents to buy for themselves. I have been following the company the estate manager set up, and in that time he has been taking out huge charges on some houses all in one street and paying back others. When you go into the transactions in Companies House you can see the charges, and the signatures of the lender are very similar to that of the borrower, as are the witnesses.

I have to sell the house to live near my family, so this time I appointed and agent to deal with the estate agents, lawyers etc. It will cost me, but I cannot face what I did in 2018.

My agent sent a report from the local agent. It is awful. It seems that my house is the only one in the Oxfordshire town which has not increased in value for three years. I think the whole rigmarole is raising it's head again. In 2003, double glazing and central heating radiators; in 2008 the loft insulation replaced, also all carpets; in 2011 a new roof on the extension (very large extension for disabled living); in 2016 carpet in bedroom and utility replaced with vinyl following washing machine leaking. In 2018 new doors to the garage and a whole new garage roof; September this year - 2021 new underfloor insulation and a brand new Bosch boiler. £1,800sq foot of space, well kept. Obviously the bathrooms and kitchen need updating. Someone will come along and install a hot water guzzling huge bath and still campaign for climate control.

I can't downsize all my bedrooms are in use and in fact we could do with an extra one. I like having big rooms and small houses generally have small rooms. I've kept my house up to date and in good repair and I did that for my benefit not someone else. I need help at home these days and the easiest way for me to get the help I need is by having family living with me. I didn't plan it this way but that's how it's worked out. House prices in and around London are ridiculous and this way my family get a large house to live in and I'm certainly not rattling around. Multi generational living should be encouraged that way the elderly get to stay in their homes and the younger family members get to live in a house they couldn't otherwise afford.

I worked full time for 38 years and at times struggled but have now been in my house 37 years. It's a small 3 bed semi and a garden which I was grateful for over the last 18 months. In recent years I've been redecorating throughout eg new kitchen as it was at least 20 years since it was done before. The workmen laughed as I said these decorations had to "see me out" and I meant it. I worked hard to buy and keep my house through break ups, I live in a cul de sac where I have good neighbours. Why should I give this up? I agree housing is a problem and I hate that we keep losing green belt but as someone else said it's population growth that's a problem. They don't consider the infrastructure when they keep building new houses - still same number of doctors and a few years ago they closed/amalgamated a lot of schools due to free spaces - where are all the new kids going to go. Whys hould older people who have worked hard all their lives end up in tiny flats etc - unless they choose to of course.

What are you on about Gabrielle? No one can or will be forced to sell their house if they don’t want to. But possibly the government might introduce some help for those who would like to but can’t afford the costs of moving. I really don’t understand what people who own or privately rent their homes are worried about. Those who live in social housing may possibly face some pressure to downsize but that remains to be seen. No point worrying about tomorrow’s unknowns, we have quite enough quantified problems to worry about today.

Well, three of the 11 houses in my street (3/4 bedroom detached houses) are now rental properties so if I sold my house chances are it would become one, too. We only had one young family with children living here but they moved out recently. Those of us that do remain have lived here for a long time, some people from when the houses were first built, and we’re a very close knit, supportive little community.

I like seeing children walking home from school in the afternoon, people out mowing their lawns, commuters getting off the local bus in the evenings, prams being pushed up and down the road etc

I love all this too.

Well said * Amalegra*.

Even decades ago my mother used to say that it cost £10k to move, by the time you’d finished.

But subsidising older people’s moves surely isn’t the answer.

How many young families in dire need of more space, will be able to afford to buy the larger houses older people are ‘rattling around’ in, is the question.

Too many of them can’t afford even a relatively very modest 3 bed house - at least anywhere around here.

The basic problem is that house prices in many parts of the country are way less affordable, relative to incomes, than they were a few decades ago.

It’s not just the U.K. though, the same has happened in other countries, inc. Australia - friends’ adult dcs have long been priced out in Melbourne - and in parts of Canada, among others.

Germanshepherdsmum

I very much doubt it Gabrielle.
No one has to sell if they don’t want to!

Joke? Ya?!

kircubbin2000

The pensioner will move to a small house or sheltered dwelling, a wealthy family will move in and the first time buyer will still be waiting.

Nail on the head! All the new builds in my area central Lancashire are 3/4/5/6! Bed "executive" houses Why???? When there absolutely no shortage of big horrid newbuilds anyway, build more? I wouldn't care but they're so ugly! Not designed to mature and enhance their surroundings still boxes but bigger! In the meantime back in th jungle- no new council developments as in the post war years, beautifully built mixed styled estates withe gardens( although less maybe today , most are now tips!) But all designed and priced to help the national push to re-grow our society after War. Building generates the most extended growth in other industries than any other activity, skills for builders, apprenticeship programmes for all aspects, all have to be furnished and dressed with carpets etc .our Gov fail to recognise this as they mostly live in inherited dumps that are frankly stuffed with ancient tat as they spend little time in them! They live like tramps and haven't a clue how it feels to finally have a home of your own so are denying our younger gens. From achieving stability and a future.lets make sure they NEVER get in to destroy our society with their greed and lies again.we deserve better

Amalegra

The concept of older people being pressurised to ‘downsize’ infuriates me! The idea of what is ‘suitable’ for retirees is insulting and usually way off the mark! Retirement accommodation, purpose built, actually is often not fit for purpose, a box like flat (sorry, ‘apartment’,now, sounds more exclusive-sarcasm!) in which one can hope to have just enough room to watch tv and (just about) move around. No garden, no space for beloved books, hobbies etc or family to gather or stay over. And surrounded by a ‘community’ of other older people! Sounds like an Orwellian hell to me! Unless one is frail and needs support, a pensioner needs space for all the things they did when younger. We do not turn into dear old dodderers as we age; those in power should get real and realise that it is the cumulative mistakes of many government causing the housing crisis and not folk trying to lead a fulfilling life in their older years which, incidentally, they have worked hard for!

Couldn't agree more.

I like seeing children walking home from school in the afternoon, people out mowing their lawns, commuters getting off the local bus in the evenings, prams being pushed up and down the road etc

I don't want to live in some bland generic complex where everyone is at exactly the same stage of life.

I'd love to downsize from my current 16: about a size 12 would be wonderful.

I haven't read every single post in this thread so it may have already been said but we are currently moving house for personal reasons and it is costing £30,000 for all the fees etc. We will end up in the same size of house (3 bed) and have been shocked to find that it is actually costing us to move!
Particularly in the southern half of the country, the housing market, the pandemic and pressure of population mean that moving house, whether up or down sizing has become a totally different situation to the same exercise 20 years ago!

GagaJo

How do you think families, mum, dad, two or more children, crammed into small terraces or flats would view the comments on this thread?

Well hopefully they would realise that older people wishing to remain in the family home that they've cared for and loved for years, and that still remains the family home for their children and grandchildren, and wanting to live in the community that they've been a part of for many years and where they have friends and a good support network, are not being selfish.

All very well and good but first time buyers and young families may struggle to buy a large house.