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Original poster

Do people who talk of a 'forever home' forget they are going to age?

476 replies

flashbac · 01/12/2021 13:38

Who wants to rattle around in a family home when the kids have left and you can no longer do the stairs? Are people intending on hogging a home too big for their needs until they die or am I missing something?

What is a 'forever home'?

OP posts:
WellyBobs123 · 01/12/2021 16:05

I've just moved into what I think is my forever home, I'm mid 20's and bought a 3 bed detached bungalow. I don't plan on moving anymore so this is our forever home

thatsgotit · 01/12/2021 16:06

Who are you to judge what other people 'need'?

DH and I have a large house because we are renting part of it to my mum (and latterly my dad). After my mum dies it will be too big for our 'needs', and my DSD is an adult and lives elsewhere.

Nevertheless, we will continue to merrily 'hog' and 'rattle around in' our own home because we happen to love our own home and the memories we have built here. Is that OK with you?

MarineBlue33 · 01/12/2021 16:06

OP, your phrase, "hogging a home" is rather nasty. People bought it / rent it. It sounds like you have not got what you want and want people to move out of their home.
If I am wrong, would love some clarity as to what point you are making

TheCovidScoorge · 01/12/2021 16:07

My mum and dad moved into their "forever home" but it is litteratly a forever home as it's a bungalow and a massive garden that will keep them busy from bugging me Grin.
But aye it's cringy hearing forever home when it has two flight of stairs and their in there 20s!

HideousKinky · 01/12/2021 16:08

IcelandicCabin We do not rent it out - we use it ourselves and one of our daughters lives in it

Clymene · 01/12/2021 16:09

I don't use the term 'forever home' because I think it's irredeemably twee but I have no intention of ever moving out of my current house.

I chose it with long term in mind and I could live on the ground floor perfectly well.

Nitgel · 01/12/2021 16:09

My dad is 92 and can still go upstairs

izalbum · 01/12/2021 16:10

@Alonelonelyloner

YANBU. I have realised in the last couple of years that my forever home is literally not going to work when I am old and decrepit. I will have to either sell when I am 70 or resign myself to living downstairs. It is a beautiful home but no matter how fit I am (I run marathons and am very fit), I won't manage realistically. It was a dumb move! Maybe I will die before then and then the kids at least get some money :)

Why do you think you won't get upstairs when you are past 70, with no health conditions affecting your mobility now?

My Nanna is 90 and only started slowing down now - she still gets upstairs though.

megletthesecond · 01/12/2021 16:10

A house can be a "forever home" if there's space to live downstairs and put in a shower room. Especially if it's well located near shops and a large hospital.
If you ever want family to stay or need space for a carer then you'll want spare bedrooms.

StEval · 01/12/2021 16:13

@SparklyLeprechaun

It might be a bit of a misnomer, but what's this about "hogging a house"? I'm not hogging anything, I'll live in my own house for as long as I want and it's nothing to do with anyone else.
This! Hogging indeed.
LuneyTunes · 01/12/2021 16:13

I love the phrase. It encapsulates that feeling that it's not just a house or a step on the rung of the housing ladder, but somewhere that caters for all your plans and needs and that you are very happy in & wouldn't want to leave. So that's why I called the first house I bought my forever house to friends, family & the mortgage company, as easy shorthand to sum up that decision-making

PlumManor · 01/12/2021 16:14

My home is my forever home, been here since I was 31 and I have no desire to leave. 24 years. Have a downstairs shower room and can get a stair lift if I need it.

My dad died age 89 this year without every having to move to a bungalow and mum is 85. They came downstairs backwards.

This is a four bed house and I just use the rooms differently now the DC have gone. It’s a modern house and warm and doesn’t have huge rambling rooms and an easy to maintain courtyard garden. It’s on an excellent bus route and in a village.

Why wouldn’t it be a forever home?

HideousKinky · 01/12/2021 16:15

@megletthesecond

A house can be a "forever home" if there's space to live downstairs and put in a shower room. Especially if it's well located near shops and a large hospital. If you ever want family to stay or need space for a carer then you'll want spare bedrooms.
Or you can put a lift in ! I heard the actor Ian McKellen who is 82 saying he had had a lift put into his 3-storey town house because he doesn't want to leave it - I told DH about this and first he looked at me incredulously, but since then I have noticed him researching it
Guacamole001 · 01/12/2021 16:15

Stair lifts work wonders as one gets older.

Franklin12 · 01/12/2021 16:16

Who are you to say they are hogging a home. Do you want it? Can you afford it? With council houses you might well have a point (tin hat at the ready) but when you have brought something why are you hogging it?

It is for you to decide what you do with your home? It sounds like you cannot afford what you really think you deserve and are accusing people of hogging it.

Having said all of that older people often leave it and leave it to downsize should they so wish and then find they dont have the energy so they live in a couple of rooms. Are often rather stingy with repairs - looking at you DF. He was in a big house but didnt maintain it. Too mean and stingy and eventually it became too much for him and he had to move to a care home. It was in a real state.

Staggered by the amount he had made on it when we sold it but also on the state he left it in. It was his choice of course and it was pretty grim but at the end of the day he was having to live in it!

TeenMinusTests · 01/12/2021 16:16

There are downsides to downsizing too.
With a spare bedroom & bathroom you can have a live in carer . This enabled my DGM to be in her own home until she passed away aged 100.

TarasCrazyTiara · 01/12/2021 16:17

It’s just a saying, nobody is buying a home that doubles as a coffin for them to wither away and die in.

CathyorClaire · 01/12/2021 16:17

Are people intending on hogging a home too big for their needs until they die

Utter bastards. Living in the house they've paid for and improved over the years instead of conveniently rolling into the grave and freeing up the space for someone more deserving,eh?

drpet49 · 01/12/2021 16:19

* I don't like the terminology but for me it means they are done with the housing ladder and found somewhere they are happy with long term.*

^This. I don’t plan on downsizing in the future.

RedHot22 · 01/12/2021 16:19

@Roselilly36

It is the most ridiculous term, there is not such thing as a forever home, circumstances change, children fly the nest, needs change, people downsize. There are long term homes, but forever homes, no.
Mine is. I don’t see how you can comment on other people’s circumstances
GnomeDePlume · 01/12/2021 16:19

@flashbac

English Housing Survey says under-occupation - usually having 2 or more spare bedrooms - has increased from 43% to 52% since the 90s.
Isnt some of that because more young adults may well move out for a time and then move back into the family home. Perhaps because of relationship breakup, perhaps to save for a deposit. I know my older DD did this.

Our intention is to keep this house for the foreseeable future. If we start to find the stairs a struggle then we may look at putting in a lift.

My DM & DPIL moved into bungalows but they were then limited on the number of visitors they could have. When our DCs were small we used to feel like an invasion force.

3scape · 01/12/2021 16:19

My house was built with a pre reinforced area for installing a lift, maintaining access to the upstairs. But there is also a large downstairs room that can (and has been) a room for end of life care and downstairs wet room. It also was designed so that an adult sized wheelchair can access the kitchen. Obviously you can't predict everything. But there are new houses built with certificate status for being "lifelong".

LadyWithLapdog · 01/12/2021 16:20

What hobbies do people have that require all this extra space and entire rooms dedicated to them? I’m imagining lots of mini railways. Also, office rooms when retired?! A click on the phone and that’s most paperwork needs sorted.

Sittingonabench · 01/12/2021 16:21

People’s needs are not purely based on the number of bedrooms though. You could have 2 spare rooms which are currently being used as offices due to two people working from home - all rooms utilised and needed. When kids move on often their rooms are changed to suit the parents needs - doesn’t mean they are hogging anything.

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 01/12/2021 16:24

Well we bought our current house in the basis that we wouldn't have to move again.

It's close to shops and the stairs would take a stair lift.

If we need more access well move again. But hopefully not

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