To think more people should be incentivised to downsize?

[Sprockerdilerock]

I'm sure I will be flamed but here goes.

I know so many older adults who live in family size homes long after their children have left. Would it not be better for the government to offer incentives eg no stamp duty, removal costs paid for them to downsize to free them up for those that need them more?

We do have a housing shortage and I get that we could always build more homes, but we are also heading towards a climate crisis and surely it's better to use what resources we do have more efficiently and plough less energy into creating more.

My MIL is case in point - she still lives in the home my DH and his siblings grew up and often expresses a wish to downsize but she doesn't have a lot of money to spend on things like legal costs etc.

No MN not a week goes by without at least one thread by someone who wants a third, forth or fifth child but are not sure if they should go ahead as they don’t have bedroom space or the money to move.
Practically the whole of mn will jump in saying children don’t need their own room and can share and they all forget if you don’t have the room for bedrooms then you will also have less living space. Small kitchen, lounge and probably no dining room or already used as a bed room.
No one says how would you cope with a 12 x 12 lounge with two adults, a teen and two preteens and or a toddler all looking for space to sit down.
They will stay in a cramped house as even if I did want to downsize they couldn’t afford to buy my house with the extra space. But they made the choice to have these children which is their right just like it is my right to live in a house I can afford even if I do end up with an empty bedroom to two.

I don't think this would work. By and large, older adults with grown up children are retired and have paid off their mortgage. They would rather have the homes they have lived in all their lives and where they have nearby friends and neighbors they can rely on for support. They would prefer this than moving to somewhere new, particularly if they don't really need the money.
But people don't live forever, these houses do come back on the market. They won't always be under occupied.

Maybe that's why it was made bit more difficult now

Perhaps, my parents are immigrants and virtually all of my friends have at least 1 immigrant parent or are immigrants themselves so emigrating is quite normal to me & still available to me & my dc.

@gongsr

Let's say 3 bed semi, 1940s build, standard 10x7m garden, on street parking

So when I was younger in the 80s that probably would have been 30k. Affordable to many as my London neighbourhood was full of people with normal jobs & many with only 1 parent working. Same neighbourhood now that would be 1m plus.

I wasn't asking about 40 years ago though. Or current price.

You asked what was an affordable price?

Many people have the misconception that London was always very expensive.

As for the poster wanting to move abroad... I wouldn’t choose most of Europe - unless you live in the middle of nowhere you will almost definitely be living in a flat! (And even in the middle of nowhere you will find one isolated house - divided into two flats...)

YABU.

@gongsr

You asked what was an affordable price?

Well yeah. And "40 years ago it costed x and now it costs y" isn't "how much do you think the house should cost to be affordable"

Well affordability doesn't have a set number does it? location is very important

I think London houses (not flats) should be affordability for doctors, teachers, police etc & timing is relevant. A 60 yr old London teacher can afford London prices if they were on the ladder in the 90s whereas a 30 yr old teacher will struggle today.

I understand the points of view of posters like @CallmeAngelina and others who feel like its unfair to expect people to give up their homes. In an ideal world we would all live in homes that suit our needs and wants exactly.

But do I think its fair that the countryside is concreted over to make room for more houses, while there are people with enough space for craft rooms and multiple dressing rooms? No I don't.

Of course people who've worked hard deserve to reap the benefits but there is still a finite amount of space.

But the country side shouldn't be concreted over because people decide to have more children either.

I agree that people shouldn't have excessively large families either for the sake of the planet but I'm not going to get into that argument on a parenting site!

We do need people to have children though otherwise who the hell is going to pay for our aging population?

@PersonaNonGarter

Housing is a SUPPLY SIDE PROBLEM. We have more households than houses. Never mind the issue with bedrooms.

The answer is to build more houses. Sorry. But blame all the retirees who turn up to council meetings demanding the dog walking field stays for dog walkers only.

Blame the developers who only seem to want to build on greenfield sites for that. There should be big incentives for builders to develop brownfield sites, so that we can have countryside and homes. And the land bankers should be forced to develop or have land compulsorily purchased.

Where I live, a developer got planning permission to build hundreds of homes on the site of an old ironworks more than 13 years ago. The people using a few industrial units that had been built were evicted about 5 years ago. There's still no sign of construction being started, but the planning consent keeps being extended.

The original developer sold the site to another developer at the end of last year. I suspect that that developer was just "land banking". That's 400+ homes that have never been built, 165 families who are still on the housing waiting list (165 of the homes are for social housing), road improvements that have not been made and a new health centre that hasn't been started (these were the S.106 bribes gains agreed).

I think it's a bloody disgrace that the extension to the planning consent was granted. Local scuttlebutt is full of "brown envelope" rumours, about this and another site in town that was nearly sold to a wealthy religious sect until there was a massive outcry about it. This site is ideal for housing, but has been empty for around 8 years. It could provide anywhere between 200 and 400 homes.

People aren't having more children though which is why we actually need immigration

A 60 yr old London teacher can afford London prices if they were on the ladder in the 90s whereas a 30 yr old teacher will struggle today

Our first flat was a decent sized two bedroom in a mansion block, decent but not top area of London (zone 3). Typical first buy at the time and it cost approx 3 times my salary in my first graduate job. That same flat in that same block was recently on sale but the price is now 15 times the starting salary for the same job at the same level.

Getting onto the property ladder is out of reach for young couples and families unless they have two above average incomes and often family help.

And before anyone pipes up about interest rates - yes they were higher but we also had MIRAS at your highest rate of tax which took a sizeable chunk out of that interest payment. (Double MIRAS for unmarried couples for a sizeable part of the 80s).

I couldn't afford my property now & Im in my 30s but was helped on the ladder.

@gongsr

Well affordability doesn't have a set number does it? location is very important

It doesn't, it's subjective and based on location. You are right and I am not arguing about that😁.That's why I was curious about whay do people think affordable in that house example would be.

Everyone always talks about "affordable housing" but it needs to be somewhat specified what the affordable housing actually is. That should be done by regions.

We have new builds advertising as "affordable housing" and they cost like 80k more than old 3 bed semi around the corner🤦 Affordable my arse.

Also we should stop using terms like "countryside concreted over". That's just designed to try to create an emotinoal reaction

Everyone always talks about "affordable housing" but it needs to be somewhat specified what the affordable housing actually is. That should be done by regions.

Agree

I find it really odd that people make decisions to stay in a far-too-large for them family home with all of the cost and hassle involved with cleaning, heating, maintenance for the sake of what is in most cases, the few nights a year that grown-up children/grandchildren might stay with them. God forbid they might stay on a sofa bed or children sleep on a blow-up mattress. It makes me think of those Escape to the Country programmes where people are downsizing but must have a dining room for Christmas dinner (and maybe Easter). Ok, so you want to spend 20 or 30 k extra on a house for the sake of a couple of days of the year...

We have new builds advertising as "affordable housing" and they cost like 80k more than old 3 bed semi around the corner🤦 Affordable my arse.

The ones I've seen are only affordable because of H2B. So the old house is much better value but the buyer can't raise the funds, they need the incentives for the new build which is more expensive. Some friends did this because it was still cheaper then rent

[quote trulydelicious]@nicebreeze

Housing and public health is something I spend a lot of time (academically, in my free time and professionally) thinking about and talking to people about

No offence, but maybe you should take up a hobby so that you stop obsessing about other people's property and have something else to talk about

The elderly who think their house is dangerous and they may fall down the stairs will sell up and move out. Those who are happy in their home will stay put. Simple.

As a society we are paying over the odds to self-proclaimed geniuses who think they can tell us how to live our lives. It' getting expensive and redundant frankly.[/quote]
I should have guessed nicebreeze worked on the sector. I really hope it's not paid by the taxpayer but it probably is.

Everyone always talks about "affordable housing" but it needs to be somewhat specified what the affordable housing actually is. That should be done by regions.

It's defined as 80% of market rate - sale or rented. Does that mean affordable?