So what happens when we're all old and we don't own our homes?

[user8665410]

Genuine question.

I'm a millennial with no hopes of ever buying a property despite earning a decent income.

There are many in my situation.

What happens when we're all in our 70s, 80s and 90s - which we will be because medical technology keeps letting us live longer - and no longer able to work. Where will we live? Who will support us? Will we just get kicked out of our homes we've been renting for (potentially) decades??

My current rent is £2,585.00, the State won't be supporting that I'm sure.

This has been answered a million times.

First, because people do jobs that only exist in London, so moving outside of commuting distance of London would require quitting your entire career and trying to find a job in a brand new industry you have no experience in, which would certainly mean a massive pay cut. If there's two of you then you both need to find new jobs in the same cheap area at the same time before you can move, then arrange finding a new rental around work start dates. Even if your career can be done elsewhere, you still need to find a new job within your own industry elsewhere. (Obviously some jobs, like wfh jobs, this doesn't apply to, but most people in wfh jobs wouldn't pay crazy rent to live in London.)

Second, people have ties to their local community and aren't in a position to just start over again in some random place where they don't know a soul. Obviously everyone's situation is different - some people have to be near family (for emotional support, or because they're providing care to elderly parents), some people have medical treatment which means they can't move to a new area or their treatment would be disrupted. Or they have kids in school at a point where it would be disruptive to move.

It's also very very expensive to move house. Whenever I move I have to pay 12 months rent upfront since I'm not eligible for a standard rental agreement, and I don't necessarily always have that much in ready cash. The assumption someone paying standard rent for a small flat in London must be earning squillions is false - lots of people live paycheque to paycheque, and just don't have a few extra grand knocking around to cover the costs of moving.

@AcesBaseballbat Im afraid the hard of thinking wont learn until they are asked to go into the care homes they are paying fees for and provide intimate care for their elderly relatives because the care workers have moved out of the cities and cant afford to commute in.

Find yourself a cheap retirement flat and share it with another pensioner - a two-bed rented flat with another couple of pensioners would be an affordable solution. If you pay rent quarterly in advance should be do-able.

Then you’re only heating one small property, sharing all bills and so on.

i shared until I was 33 to save money and don’t see why it should not be possible at the other end of adulthood.

That wouldnt bother me as long as i knew the other person and they wernt a complete stranger. You cant trust HAs to vet people properly.

Only a couple of years ago the rent of a pretty nice 2 bed flat in London SW17, Tooting, was around £1500 - 1700 a month. In the past year rents have soared, £2000 is not uncommon - and Tooting is not exactly a smart area!
Rents were soaring well before mortgage rates shot up, so it can’t just be down to that. No prizes for guessing though.

I think there’s merit in a pp’s suggestion that university apartments could be used for elderly living. Shared living room and kitchen, all bedrooms already en-suite

I'm assuming that we have to chuck all our possessions (getting on for 1,000 books in my case) in this scenario - let alone any wish for privacy and space; or a garden. Or a kitchen of our own where we can cook what and when we like.

No thanks.

• The number of people living in specialist retirement housing or in care homes is relatively low; most older people live in their own homes:
• According to LaingBuisson (2018), there are 11,109 care homes for older people and those living with dementia. Of these, 42% (4,632) were registered nursing homes.
• Approximately 418,000 people live in care homes (Laing and Buisson survey 2016). This is 4% of the total population aged 65 years and over, rising to 15% of those aged 85 or more.
• 167,000 people are receiving specialist dementia care in care homes – around 40% of the total care home population.
• There are no definite statistics on the number of people living in retirement housing. However, according to the Elderly Accommodation Counsel, in June 2019 there were 730,000 retirement housing units across the UK.

I privately rent and don’t have a pension.
i would love to have spare cash for it. But I don’t, if I did, I probably wouldn’t be privately renting.

there will be millions like me. Just normal people on a normal income, still get child benefit but don’t get any other benefits, that’s getting eaten up with housing costs.

This is such a London centric post!

Most housing outside of London is in towns and cities, rental in tiny villages is rare.

I just looked at Winchester which is 55 minutes to London west end and it's 1,500 rent or so for 2 beds. And that's a posh town.

Southampton, a couple of stops on is much cheaper.

I commuted from there for years five days a week and no WFH ever, it wasn't a thing.

With flexible working a commute is bearable.

There's literally hundreds of nice safe commuter towns. And there's jobs there too.

The picture you describe of the UK is London and olde Englande of hamlets where nobody works, just lives off their chickens and vegetable patch!

Fucking hell the "you must own your own home" brigade are a fucking cult

If you moved further out, you could buy a car!

That's really an obscene amount to pay in rent. I don't earn that much a month!!

I thought it was now law that people had to have a pension?

No, you have to be offered the opportunity to contribute to a pension scheme. Acceptance isn’t a legal obligation.

I think at the moment many retired people who rent are quite shielded by the system. If they're renting and qualify, they get housing benefit, pension credit and their council tax paid - as a previous poster said on this thread. Obviously there is no way that this is sustainable into the future. I would have thought the Government is sleepwalking into a crisis here. But forward planning is not any Government's strong-point. Very worrying.

Would that be the same retired people who loads on here were happy to use as a tool to emotionally blackmail others into following Covid rules. They came in handy then didnt they.

My adult DDs inherited from their grandparents, so didn’t have to wait until they were 61, the average age of inheriting (according to a PP). I also inherited from my PILs, so between us, each DD was able to buy their first home in Edinburgh in their twenties.
They are now 33 and 34, one is mortgage free and about to upsize to a forever home, also mortgage free, while the other one and her fiancé own two flats and rent one out for a nice income boost.

They are much better off than my generation. I’m in my sixties, and lived in a slum tenement with no bathroom in my twenties, before struggling with 16% interest rates when finally buying a house. DH and I couldn’t afford a tv or carpets for three years after moving in.

Wow Babdoc your daughters are so lucky - but that just shows the inequalities in the system doesn't it.? If people were able to buy a flat and rent another out for "extra incomr" that's a huge difference to someone trying to get on the ladder in the first place.

Inheriting is such a huge boost that those of us that won't inherit won't ever see.

We live in a far worse situation than our parents. - and I really fear for my daughters ability to live independently when they grow up for the same reasons!

And envy those with inheritances quite a bit! It buys so much more freedom.

They were lucky then. I'm 33 and I only know one person my age who owns a home. When you don't have any inheritance you're screwed.

You’re not if there are two of you. Our two youngest (33 and 31) are both homeowners. They and their partners saved hard, one used Help to Buy. The eldest bought a new build 3 bed, sold at a profit and now has a 4 bed detached. The younger bought a terraced doer up and they’re planning to upsize. No inheritance or bank of Mum and Dad.

Depends on many factors. Not everyone has the opportunity to live with their parents and save - I used to work with teenage boys who were kicked out of their homes by their parents. Not everyone will ever earn enough to buy - some people don't have the opportunity to get a decent paying job. You can't save hard if you don't have the spare cash to do it.

I didn’t mention living with parents.

I know, I'm just pointing out various factors. It IS a privileged attitude to think everyone has equal opportunities to own homes.

I didn’t say that either. I took issue with your contention that without an inheritance you’re screwed.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

I’m not advocating that this be done by force ☺️. It could suit many people. I downsized a few years ago, to a much smaller property, and had to be very selective about which belongings could come with me. (I also have a very large collection of books.) Lots of people downsize in preparation for retirement.

I would imagine that a group of already established friends (widows, divorcees) could move in together and feel much happier for it. As a PP said, like the Golden Girls.

Check your able-bodied privilege, please.

I'm far too disabled to be able to do a FOUR-HOUR commute every single day, and no reasonable person would suggest that.

People are very keen on going "well but but but it's only an hour by train!" Yeah, if you live directly next to the train station, and work directly next to the train station on the other end. In reality travelling to and from both train stations can easily add an hour to your journey.

For one thing, properties right next to mainland train stations that have direct trains to London tend to be very expensive for that very reason. You probably wouldn't be able to find something within easy walking distance of a train station with a direct train to London cheap. That means you have to add on an extra half an hour or more to wait for a bus to get to the train station, and that's assuming these places have good bus service.

Second, London is massive - the commute from the train station to your own workplace could easily be an hour.

I just checked, and trains from London to Southampton are 2 and a half hours, unless you pay for the much more expensive fast train. And even the slow train is very expensive. So if you miss or can't afford the fast train, that's a bare minimum of five hours, but probably more like 7 hours commute every day.

Fundamentally, it's not reasonable to expect people to commute at least two hours every single day forever. It's just not. You wouldn't have any quality of life that way, and it assumes that everyone is able-bodied, so again disabled people get shafted.