To think that fairly soon it will be impossible to retire unless you're a homeowner?

[Echobelly]

... at least in some parts of the country.

I'm sort of amazed this isn't being talked about - we have more and more people who can never afford to buy, whose rent payments take a significant chunk of their salary, and that chunk only goes up and up. How are they supposed to save for a pension when all their money goes on rent? And there's very little social housing to go round.

Homeowners at least will mostly be able to pay off mortgages, that are likely to be less than rent and allow them to pay into pensions, and have the option of downsizing to help manage retirement.

In the next few decades it seems likely we will see increasing numbers of people who reach retirement age, or may simply no longer be well enough to work, yet their pensions will not cover rent, let alone anything else. But no one's thinking about how society is supposed to cope with this and won't until it's too late it appears.

I expect that many renters will be living in bedsits when they retire. There are already many men over 60 living in bedsits. There was an article on it recently. This situation will become more and more common.

I guess people will do what anyone who can't afford their own place does, they'll take a room in a shared house. One of my neighbours is a retired lady who has two lodgers, both also retired. They cover the bills between them. It seems to work well.

Probably quite a good idea - at least they won't be lonely!

I agree this is a huge problem. I wonder too about the impact of people that would once have been state-employed, but now work on zero-hour contracts, their jobs having been outsourced. The state is going to have to cover the impact of the zero-hour contracts at some point, no sick pay and no pension for so many people.

It’s bizarre that Margaret Thatcher was able to sell both the idea that everyone should own their own home and to sell off so much of the national infrastructure. It’s a complete contradiction.

Pensions have never been self funded. They have always been paid for by current workers.

It is very slightly contribution based in that to get the full state pension under 80 you need to have paid so much NI over so many years. (Depends on age/ years)

The state pension has not been affordable for some time and certainly won't be in the future.

Workers paid for war babies to have a retirement because they lived through hardship and were seen as deserving. No one thinks that of boomers.

I have to admit, I have limited sympathy elderly people living in family size homes they can't afford to heat or maintain. Just sell and more to a smaller place.

Have you tried this? If so, where to? We have to live within our county. I have been looking for two years for a bungalow, within walking distance of a few shops and GP practice, in case we can’t drive. I haven’t found one, except two built right next door to a pub! (My worry there is noise and trouble at chucking out time).

An architect told us, he and his wife have the same problem. Every bungalow is bought up by a developer, who knocks it down and builds one or two houses in its place, so there are less and less of them!

Flats leave elderly people at the mercy of service charges, they might not be able to afford in 10 years time! Many low level blocks of flats have stairs and no lifts; which cause problems for people who can’t manage stairs. Then there’s the whole cladding problem with higher rise blocks.

It's suddenly starting to look impossible even if you are a home owner who's paid off their mortgage. We paid ours off a couple of years ago so we've saved a bit. Our mortgage was only £380 ish a month at the end. The plan was to pay our old mortgage amount into pensions or savings for retirement in 10 years. Now it will be more than swallowed up with the cost of living and energy cost crisis. I can't ever see energy costs coming down to an acceptable level. The fat cats in the future will take advantage of the fact we've had to get used to paying the high rates & will carry on robbing us blind

Yes we should all be paying out of what little we have so boomers can retire to bungalows, close to amenities but no pubs

YANBU.

Retirement, like affordable homes, secure jobs, a stable climate, long-term peace, and economic growth, will end with the boomers and they'll do everything in their power to ensure they get the maximum benefit before pulling the ladder up behind them.

How exactly are boomers pulling the ladder up behind them?

The ones on benefits ? The ones voting for change ? Or just the ones saving any inheritance for their own children ?

Stop your narrow minded agist shit easy answers because weak thinking is what got us in this mess - people believing the fairy tales and allowing themselves to be blind to what is happening

Hint it's not old folks - it's the rich and super rich you should be looking at

YANBU.
I've had to opt out of my workplace pension because I can't afford to lose the money each month, people ask what I'm going to do when I reach retirement age and frankly I don't know.
DH doesn't have a workplace pension either.
I'm more concerned how I'm going to feed my child each month right now.

This. I bought my house from two pensioners. It was lethal, in need of...

new roof
all new exterior doors and windows
rewiring
new kitchen
new boiler
insulation

There are roughly 27 million dwellings in the U.K. I estimate 5% at any point are dangerous/approaching uninhabitable.

@TheSummerPalace I interpreted that post as maybe older people living in a large family home of say 4 beds and moving to a smaller house - not necessarily a bungalow of flat.
I also have no sympathy for those in large family homes , rattling around, asset rich cash poor.

Have you tried to buy a two bed bungalow recently? They cost more than family houses. Developers hate building them because they take up too much space for the number of bedrooms.
There were three in our village 10 years ago. All three have been rebuilt as five or six bed homes.
So don't blame retiring boomers looking for single storey dwellings because they aren't that easy to find.

Who allowed the super rich to accumulate that level of wealth? Which generation holds the power of government but refuses to implement change? Which generation continues to vote them into power?

I'm absolutely sick of listening to you lot mump and moan about everything when you're the one's who not only got us into this mess but also refuse to do anything to get is out of it because it might reduce your quality of life.

Millennials and younger generations consistently state that their top priority and no.1 concern is climate change by some distance (second is societal inequality).

Despite this what are our boomer leaders doing to address the issue? Lip service and not much else. Worse, we're now hearing calls to increase oil/gas extraction and to fire up coal powered generation again all because boomer governments couldn't be arsed to properly invest in energy infrastructure and clean generation when they had the chance and now don't want to pay for their own ineptitude.

There's a real undercurrent of anger from younger generations over what boomers have done to the planet and society as a whole, made a whole lot worse by your continued denial of fault and refusal to accept any responsibility.

Obviously not every single boomer is to blame but as a generation overall you are the one's who have exploited and decimated the planet to the point of ecological collapse and are the one's who won't enact the changes required.

So no I won't stop with my "narrow minded shit" because it's not narrow minded shit. It's the truth and it's something you'll need to deal with sooner or later.

How the heck could they stop them anymore than previous generations ?

They made headway after the wars - pensions education nhs workers rights - but since then the rich and privileged have chipped away at everything

Especially at anything which might mean the plebs will come together as one irrespective of any ism - faith age colour -

Because it's only through working together that we could possibly achieve change

You need to accept people of every generation if you want change not just fall into the trap of fighting and hating the wrong people

A generation doesn't vote then into power

Individuals do

Yes more older people on average vote that way but so do younger people

And if younger people turned up to vote in the same proportion as older people there would be a bigger chance of begging heard

I did say house not bungalow . Yes I’m aware of lack of bungalows.

And for clarity I am not a boomer - I am not defending "my own group"

It’s worrying because quite rightly pensioners who rent will get housing benefit, but how can our society afford that forever? If councils could build more properties, low cost for pensioners, they wouldn’t need half as much housing benefits, which we end up paying for.

Its all such a mess!

I agree, pensioners living in state owned properties have them maintained by the council or housing association.If their pension doesn’t cover rent, private or council, then they will receive housing benefit and pension credit.

Renting: someone else is responsible for ensuring your home meets the regulations set by government. Someone else is responsible for the gas check, electrical safety, insulation and general repairs.
You can move when the neighbours are shit an awful lot easier than if you own. You'e not going to want to move often though as it's expensive whether you own or rent.

If you have no extra pension you get pension credits which mean you are much better off than someone with a tiny pension. PC gives access to many other things.

A bad landlord can mean a miserable existence, but you have the option to move.
Rents going up has made renting a terrible option.

HMO with insane numbers of bedrooms are being put in place in North Manchester. They are an awful idea, one step removed from the horrendous bedsits that existed prior to better housing standards being introduced.
Shared accommodation rates only for the under 35s has to be an incredibly damaging long term policy too.

Bungalows are insanely priced.
Half my street is 3 bed semis, the other half is 2 bed small bungalows.
If I sold my 3 bed large semi, I couldn’t afford any of the 2 bed bungalows opposite me, even if they were in awful condition, I’d have to put at least £30k to my house.

It's pretty ridiculous that whether your parents owed their home/could help you will be important than your salary when it comes to home ownership for the young.

Huge issues coming up as well with the changing demographic.

And if you live in Scotland it will soon be against regulations to sell anything lower than a C rated energy certificate, so the days of buying something cheap to do up will end.