To STILL not want to downsize?

[toconclude]

Live in Victorian smallish semi - technically 4 bed but three bedrooms are singles and DH uses one as a study and always has. Downstairs bathroom which we've managed with so far.
Ongoing options are: convert one bed to bathroom so one on each floor - then as we get older would improve safety (currently average age late 60s)
Or downsize to smaller bungalow. In our town that means almost inevitably spending more money as land is pricey, and getting rid of DHs bulky Edwardian heirloom furniture
Also would lose my lovely neighbours of many years and my lovely garden.
Have already given both kids significant lump sum towards buying their own house.
A reaction to a comment in another thread about selfish boomers "hoarding" family houses.
Don't feel like a hoarder but maybe we are😳🤷

@Blimeyherewegoagain

Studies have shown that older people living in houses keep better health that those in bungalows. The going up and down stairs helps keep your muscles and heart healthy. X

True, at least it was for my folks, then mid 60s. After 3 years in a bungalow they’d downsized to, they decided they didn’t like the area after all, moved again - to a house. And found that lack of stairs had seriously affected their fitness.

It did return eventually, and my Dm was still well able to manage stairs when she moved to a care home (dementia) at 89.

At your age, i al sure you're fit and able and see no reason to downsize.

All of mine and DH'a grandparents would have struggled in a Victorian house in their 80s

My own GM really struggles to keep her tiny bungalow clean (too proud to accept
Help) now and she shuffles about on a frame. Her bathroom has been adjusted. She's very Immobile suddenly. Getting up the few steps from drive to front door is hard

DH's GP struggles on in a large house. He
Can no longer get up the stairs. House is falling down around him

Don't be too proud to admit you're too old to live the same life and accept that your needs change

Keep your lovely house and concert one of the brooms to a fab walk in shower room with loo.

Haven’t read the whole thread so I’m sorry if I’m repeating anything.
Difficult decisions, but my wonderful sil says .......
Bungalow estates are GWR - Gods Waiting Room. Are you really ready for that?

Make your present home usable for you now and for the future. Who knows what awful things could await if you move, bad neighbours, twitchy curtains, no room to host family, no memories.

My husband is 68 and I’m 63 in a few months. Like you we have a lovely garden and lovely neighbour and value both. We also love our house, having spent years getting it as we want it. We have no plans to move and will put a stair lift, or one of those mini lifts through the living room ceiling if we need it! If you’re happy and settled, why move?

@Nothappyatwork

I have a friend who is an loss adjuster and honestly like the effort and time and expense they go to to not pay out with blow your mind. I wouldn’t be hopeless I just move into another house and then get it fixed 🤷‍♀️ Obviously car insurance is the law so you don’t get a choice as to whether to pay for that or not but I’ve had my car stolen written off and they didn’t pay out on that, despite loss adjuster friend actually writing out the claim 🤦‍♀️ kind of puts me off any insurance that’s voluntary.

If you have a mortgage, Buildings insurance is required or you are in breach of contract. Also, if your house is a right off (returning to your car analogy), you are legally required to rebuild it. How would you do that if you were bankrupt? It sounds as though you would be 🤷‍♀️

My parents are divorcing in their mid seventies meaning my DM is having to leave the family home for the last 35 years, a 3 bedroom rural detached house. DF is settled abroad and us justbawatubg settlement of finances.
It's heartbreaking downsizing when unwanted. Half the value of the home equates to a very limited choice in current t area. Also having to give up a large garden.
Downsizing is practical at this age but a massive emotional upheaval.
Any advice welcome as denial is the current state I am having to move.....

When you start to struggle with stairs, get a stair lift. My in laws are 70 and are still fine with the same size house though.

There is no set time limit or indeed any actual requirement to down-size. I know a woman who moved into a retirement village unit when she was in her fifties; I know others who have stayed on happy and well in their own homes well into their nineties. There are supercentarians (up to age 119!) still living in their own homes with minimal outside assistance.

*supercentenarians

Stay in your lovely home. Don't feel guilty. It's fine. Enjoy.

It’s not as simple as people hoarding the family houses. The reality is that in 1960 houses were on average only twice the cost of the average salary. By 2005 the year I turned 16 so the earliest year I could start working full time and considering moving out the average wage was £23k a year and the average house price was around £156k so over 6 times average salary. So buying a house was already going to be more difficult for my generation before we even began working. Where I live currently even though I have a degree, my job options mean I am likely to never earn over £25-28k a year but if I wanted a modest 3 bed house in my town it is £800k-£1mil. I didn’t move here, I grew up here and it’s where all my relatives are, most of whom do not own their own homes either. I am holding out hope that one day when I’m in my 50s maybe I can afford to get a mortgage for a little 1 bed place to retire in 😂 unless people at earning over the average wage by quite a bit they can’t buy where i live.

Stay in your house and enjoy it..when FIL died at 64 my MIL often said she felt selfish staying in her 4 bedroom house but she loved it and so did we. Stay.

You don’t have to move house if you don’t want to.

Don’t worry about hoarding. Near me, most houses are either two bed attached cottages, or detached 4 double bed houses with big gardens. The detached houses are mostly occupied by couples in their sixties/seventies and the two bed cottages are mostly young families who can’t afford to spend another £600k to get an extra 2 bedrooms. I think when people talk a out selfish boomers they mean that kind of thing, but the problem is how the government has allowed the housing market to be controlled by investors (who are constantly knocking down bungalows to build townhouses and 2 bed flats, not family housing).

As someone with a young family I don't think you are hoarding, tbh I couldn't afford your house. It is more the ones that are renting council/housing association houses that could downsize so that young families can get a chance that are the problem.

@Snaketime

As someone with a young family I don't think you are hoarding, tbh I couldn't afford your house. It is more the ones that are renting council/housing association houses that could downsize so that young families can get a chance that are the problem.

How do you think they ever came to afford that house in the first place ? My auntie has an absolutely beautiful property and she only got on the latter because she bought her ex cancel house for £32,000 when she and a husband were both earning £17,000 each. Which is pretty poorly paid jobs he was a trainee mechanic and she was a care worker. The house is now worth £150,000. This is not an accident, this is not the free market the market has been interfered with that has led to these massive inflationary rises.