Why bungalows for sale are so neglected?

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My own bungalow fits the description of the OP.

The reason it is so run down is because we cannot afford to keep it in tip top pristine condition. We paint and decorate from time to time as we can. Leaks get fixed and the garden ( sort of) gets done and thats it.

We need a new kitchen, new bathroom, new utility fitted, central heating. We did get the roof insulated but the double glazed windows and doors are now lover 20 years old. . Probably some young keen thing would want a conservatory or similar and a car port or garage. We cant afford those upgrades.

Paying someone to come in costs more - if you can find someone in that kind of line. I had a gardener and tree /hedge cutter but he has now decided to dump maintenance and gardening and be a paramedic. Its easier, the income isnt seasonal.

I cannot afford to sell up because the price of a new build is more than I have. I cannot get a mortgage as we are too close to retiring ( husband has retired) . So, dilapidated is the way to go.

The good news is, when it does go on the market, it will go with no chain.

I hate the word elderly. My mom also said older never old.

I knew when I moved I would need a bungalow. I was born disabled but wasn't until I was 29 that my symptoms got worse. So my husband adapted our large 3 bed house to make life easier for me. Our children where 4 and 6 months . When my husband's cancer was diagnosed and was told he wouldn't live 5 years. First thing we did was once he recovered from operation to remove the cancer was to have the bathroom out and a shower room put in. As he knew I couldn't manage to shower without him helping me. This was 2001. My husband died in 2004. The children left in 2006 as I wanted them to . My daughter back to the city where she went to uni so she could use her degree. My son went to uni.

I rattled round my house and needed a gardener as my garden was to much for me. Because of looking after both my parents and mother in I couldn't move.

I only had done what needed to be done in the house . No decorating . My living room window needed replacing and when my oven broke had a new one. When I left I knew all the things wrong with the house but it was up to my buyers surveyor to find out . I had 2 buyers pull out on me nothing to do with the state of my house but they changed their mind. The couple who brought it had a surveyor he was in and out in 10 mins.

At least the surveyor I used on my bungalow I knew what needed doing and knew in what order I needed it doing. But viewing could see something's myself. But when you buy a property whether it's a house or bungalow you are buying bricks and mortar and any land with it. To expect a house or bungalow to not need work is unrealistic. Bet others like me who sold their home knew exactly what needed doing.

I can't understand why so many posted where deleted. Like some one already said it started out about bungalows but turned into older people and disabled bashing.

I moved when I was 61 as I had no one depandant on me anymore. Best thing I have done was moving to my bungalow in the north west. Wonderful people and brilliant health care. I knew my spending limit was £250k . My bungalow was £220k I sold my house for a bit less .

Because my brother and sister in law needed a bungalow due to my sister in law's MS they also had to move over 100 miles away . They live a different part of the country from me and theirs was cheaper because of the amount of work needed doing but have done all the work and like mine has increased in value by £100k.

The main reason more bungalows are not build is because nowadays, 60% or more of the price of a house will be the cost of the land and bungalows need bigger plots than houses, so the cost of the land is proprtionately higher.

This means that a builder will need to charge as much for a bungalow as they do for a house and, as we have seen in this thread, people are shocked and unwilling to pay as much for a bungalow as for a 3 or 4 bedroomed house.

Nowadays housing for old age does not have to be single storey. Housing can be designed that can take stair lifts, or even lifts and these can be built in from the start. Also there does seem to be a perception on this thread that all older people are disabled in some way and cannot cope with stairs. That certainly applies to some, but many people can go up and down stairs without problem for the whole of their lives.

We bought our current home in our mid 50s, knowing that at sometime we might need a smaller house with a smaller garden. After 27 years and hitting 80 we feel we have reached that point, but 27 years in a house that we have loved living in and had no difficulty managing is not unreasonable and a very good reason for not having downsized in our 50s.

Now that we are downsizing our main drivers are the size of the garden and a desire to move into a town so that we are close to all facilities and also our family. We are more than happy to continue to live in a house like our current home. Its only failing being that we have small windy cottage staircases that are not suitable for stairlifts should we ever need one.

Excuse typos

Our children didn't seem to go when we were in our fifties.
In fact, one was only 7 when DH was fifty!

But yes, there does seem to be an optimum time to move but it didn't fit in with our work, having DP to live with us, etc.
Combined with ack of suitable homes, we seem to be stuck.

What is neglrcted?
Old-fashioned? Not everyone's tastes are the same anyway.

The increasing costs? For instance, having the outside of the house painted is now very costly because legislation requires scaffolding.

I am not implying that older people are rattling around in homes that are too big for them.

The opening post questions why bungalows are neglected. How I dislike that description because neglect suggests a wilful act. Any kind of property can fall into disrepair when someone no longer has the physical ability or financial resources to maintain it.

I’m just trying to highlight the challenges that older people can face particular when they are in poor health and have no support. They may want to move but the whole business of finding a new home, selling and buying, always supposing one can find a suitable property in a location that meets the needs of an older person, is a challenge. So years roll by and nothing happens.

The Mature Times article I mentioned upthread, based on a survey by one of the big lenders, Halifax or Nationwide, I can’t remember which, found that people start thinking about moving in their mid to late fifties, when children have grown and gone, but many (most?) do nothing about it until their eighties by which time it has becomes much more of a challenge.

One of the reasons highlighted by the survey findings was the scarcity of properties for those who want single-storey living other than the McCarthy and Stone apartment model. And that is simply because so few bungalows, if any, are being built and the question is why?

Crikey - 12 pages on bungalows! Perhaps the OP (if she's still there) might consider buying a house (there's plenty of choice) and, if she still objects to the idea of a lift - just have the whole upstairs removed?

nanna8

We’ve got a big house by British standards but if we sold it we would pay more or less the same to get a much smaller one on a crappy little block so what’s the point? We just re arrange things - a study each, 2 spare bedrooms, craft room etc. The thing I most like hanging onto is the garden, though. Not overlooked by anyone, loads of trees and visited by many colourful birds and native creatures. I know every single plant and tree in the garden ( I planted many of them ) and like a certain person in high places I communicate with them .

Sounds idyllic, nanna8. I’d have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of somewhere like that.

I don’t miss the huge garden I used to have because my new one is more manageable but I really miss the wonderful bird life.

Funny the things you take for granted. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

We’ve got a big house by British standards but if we sold it we would pay more or less the same to get a much smaller one on a crappy little block so what’s the point? We just re arrange things - a study each, 2 spare bedrooms, craft room etc. The thing I most like hanging onto is the garden, though. Not overlooked by anyone, loads of trees and visited by many colourful birds and native creatures. I know every single plant and tree in the garden ( I planted many of them ) and like a certain person in high places I communicate with them .

It’s so often implied that many older people are rattling around in houses that are far too big for them.

TBH I know of only one couple like this - in a 5 bed house with a morning room, two other large receptions, and a very large garden. They did eventually downsize but the house took ages to sell, at least partly because prices had shot up so much since they had bought it over 30 years previously, that it was now out of reach financially, of the sort of buyers they were then.

This was nowhere near the SE but in the ‘Golden Triangle’, as I believe it’s called, in Yorkshire. (York, Harrogate, Leeds? - someone will know.)

Many of us in nothing-particularly-special 3 or 4 bed houses certainly aren’t ‘rattling around’ and do use all the rooms, if not every day, then fairly often.

A widowed friend of mine would like to move from her relatively very small 1930s 3 bed (3rd is tiny) terrace, with the fairly large garden of that era, but locally all the 2 bed flats she might like are not far off the same sort of price, so all the hassle and upheaval would hardly be worth it.

Admittedly we are in a fairly expensive area. An article I read a few years ago extolling the virtues of downsizing, quoted the case of a couple who’d sold their 5 bed Edwardian family house in a nearby but still more expensive area, for IIRC £2.5m, and moved to a 3 bed flat with two balconies, overlooking a Royal Park, for £1.3m.

An option open to the relatively very few!

Still don’t ‘get’ why so many posts were deleted. I think maybe it was a vendetta of some sort. No doubt this one will ‘go’ too. One advantage of living in another time zone, they have to stay up all night or get up super early.

I've checked RusBun's posts, and STILL cannot see where the Epsom location was used, though hidden away on one page was somebody else who referred to Epsom, I'm guessing that stemmed from another thread at some point .
For what it I worth I believe OP said her husbands work was in Epsom.

Caravansera You completely misinterpreted my post and clearly only read the first para. The 2 posts below my post from other people make it clear that they did understand my point, so its meaning should have been quite clear.

To try to put it in simpler terms. I am at one with you, the person/people who decide whether a house is too big/suitable are the older people living in them, but far too often the people pontificating on this subject are younger people, who have absolutely no understanding or appreciation of how accommodation is used when you are retired and home based.

You have only to look at the limited range of accommodation, designed for older people and its containment within retirement complexes to see that decisions about housing for older people is being taken out of the hands of older people and decided, no doubt in their best interests, supposedly, by much younger people.

I know that for some older people these small one or two bedroomed properties are ideal, but for many more older people, they are not, nor does everyone want to live in a complex with lots of other people like them. many of us like to live where our neighbours can be any age.

I have quite a number of older friends and family members who have moved in recent years, to down size or to move nearer their families. Not one of them has bought a retirement flat. Mostly they have chosento buy 3 and 4 bedroomed 'family' houses on new estates. Obviously, Caravansera the property they have bought has been dictated by their financial resources.

The other aspect that these researchers also ignore is the number of much younger singles and couples who also choose to live in three or four bedroomed 'family' homes. In fact I have yet to meet a young single person or couple who did not aspire to 3 or 4 bedroomed accommodation, even though they may have started their home owning career in a 1 bedroomed.
flat.

Why do those who are so bothered about older people living in homes deemed to big for them, fail to also call out the members of their own generation who are living in family homes that were they 25 years older would be deemed to big for them.

ALSO for Germanshepherdsmum, sorry, I had to look up what CBA and RTFT meant, and Google's first suggestion for RTFT was rather rude, hence my first reply!

BUT I now see a further idea that the F might well mean 'Full', so apologies for my initial response?!

Sorry Germanshepherdsmum, here I've been praising your comments (here and on other threads) and I see you used gutter language to 'answer' my simple query?

I've checked RusBun's posts, and STILL cannot see where the Epsom location was used, though hidden away on one page was somebody else who referred to Epsom, I'm guessing that stemmed from another thread at some point -- which if true I'm afraid my lack of COAFCB has indeed been a hindrance. Sorry.

Much of let's see 11 pages now are actually it seems sidetracks re washing and drying (or at one point, false teeth?!!), not about the original topic, so I fail to see WHY I should indeed "RTFT" as you so charmingly put it?

Oh, and as you're jumping to conclusions about "busy", I was merely pointing out that it would likely be a waste of time, as indeed it transpired, with much of now 11 pages wandering off to discuss those sidetrack subjects.

Nothing I put about me being busy with several jobs should have been taken to be any reference to how occupied others are or are not -- clearly it's quite logical to realise that some people may have little time to spare, but a decent subset have all day to browse these threads for info and/or amusement. That seems to include YOU, as the logical view would be that you already knew what was in the FT before you suggested that I should RTFT?

In the brief time I've been acquainted with GN I've looked at only a few topics, and commented on 3 or 4 if the subject in the email looked of possible interest. Hope that helps.

For Lou in GN-HQ -- I see you've knocked off lots of comments, and say "look at guidelines". But why not actually tell people WHY that comment was deemed a no-no? I've no idea what people put that was naughty??!

For Callistemon -- and your "what are you talking about - I didn't ask for help from you". YOU quoted from my comment about a couple of Bungs (one near Chobham) and said "Oh, I did like Chobham and Windlesham when we were house hunting in the SE but it was just a bit too far out for DH's work and relatively expensive compared to some other areas". Did you forget?

All I meant was that your experiences in that part of Surrey were particular to you, that's all. And my comment was NOT "an attack", merely a reply comment.

Monica But who decides whether a house is too large or too expensive to maintain?

The occupant(s) of course. You are using the term "we" so I assume you still have a partner, two incomes and a need to accommodate two people's belongings and occupations.

Things change when that is no longer the case. When one partner dies and the widow (or widower's) income is reduced, the cost of running the home, especially a large home, starts to become disproportionate. The only concession is a 25% reduction in council tax. For an average large F banded home that might be about £700-£800 p.a. but as I said upthread, you've potentially lost the person who used to do small jobs around the house and you are now paying for those at £200 a day. My late husband would tackle small to medium plumbing, electrical, carpentry and decorating jobs that I neither have the skills nor confidence to do (or do alone). And that is when homes can start to fall into disrepair for those who can't afford to spend a week or more's pension on a day's labour.

The older someone gets, especially those who have no family for support (as I don't), just the thought of what is involved in moving can seem overwhelming. For someone with impaired mobility, someone who perhaps doesn't drive, simply going to look at potentially suitable properties is problematic.

When I talk about incentives, I don't just mean financial lures. Perhaps assistance would be a better choice of word.

I'd be very interested to hear from someone on GN, someone who is disabled, who doesn't drive and who managed to move house without family support because that is the reality facing a lot of older people who would like to move to smaller property assuming they could find something suitable.

According to Age UK, more than 2 million people in England over the age of 75 live alone, and more than a million older people say they go over a month without speaking to a friend, neighbour or family member. Who would help them if they wanted to move?

We also live in a technically too big house.
We use all of it except one room which is waiting for redecoration!

But who decides whethr a house is too large or too expensive to maintain? We live in a large 4 bedroomed house and us every room. We are thinking of downsizing, to a house with a smaller garden but we do not plan to reduce the size of house we buy much
We tend to spread around too although we don't use all the bedrooms unless visitors come.

I suppose we could get used to it, but so many properties considered suitable for older people consist of sitting room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom.

Older people might be incentised to move from homes that are now too large and expensive to maintain but there has to be somewhere to go to. We have to start with a radical change of policy about planning.

But who decides whethr a house is too large or too expensive to maintain? We live in a large 4 bedroomed house and us every room. We are thinking of downsizing, to a house with a smaller garden but we do not plan to reduce the size of house we buy much.

The peoblem with most retirement complexes is that, apart from the maintenance charges and the share of the capital they take when you sell, and those are both major disincentives. They type of accommodation they offer is so small and so uniform. One or two bedroomed flats or bungalows. most of them quite small. I am sure that this accommodation is just what some people want, but others want larger accommodation, more bedrooms, more living space, more rooms. If some one is a maker or do-er they may want a shed to work in, or a sewing room, or music room.

The current range of accommodation offered to older people is restricted both in tenure and size.

There are a lot of retirement villages popping up round here too. The local authorities are building them too in the form of passivhaus, which I had not heard of before but seems a really interesting concept which pairs affordability with environmentally friendly house building

There are a lot of retirement villages here which have quite pleasant little houses. The problem is that you buy a house but you still have to pay a monthly maintenance fee that increases year by year. My Dad lived in one when he was alive ,after he emigrated but not my cup of tea.

But we could be if we were pro-active early on and lobbied central and local governements to do something. Again, in the UoL study it says:

Most people migrated to the county in their 50s and early 60s in good health and preparing for an active and busy retirement. When asked, few participants recalled giving any consideration in their move to the potential future implications of changing health, mobility or developing care and support needs.

We should know by now that we cannot rely on governments to plan for our needs unless we start pressurising them to do so. The controversies over pensions and healthcare are clear evidence that.

I've been nagging local councillors to do something. There is now a co-housing project in the pipeline. It's small and just tinkering around the edges of a much larger problem but it is a start.