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.

It isn't only that. I'm a single mum, born the last year of the boomer generation. I have one child, and I scrimped to buy my flat. No fridge for the first month, no bed for two months, home made curtains and a washing machine added gradually over the following year. No car. No social life. The 80s was a different world.

Yet I had someone at work, 10 years younger than me, moaning on about how he would never be able to retire, that he couldn't afford a pension, it was all our fault.

But then he spent £7k on a bike. £200 a month making his own vape fluids, £950 on a tattoo, he had two dcs by two mums. New car every three years.

I know it's tough now. I have nephews and nieces who are struggling and I help wherever I can. My ds' turn will come. But there will always be some who aren't poor, they are just foolish, and that isn't the boomers fault, no matter how much they would like it to be..

I always say to my other half that this creates a mentality of the regular person fighting over scraps, when the people who create their problems in the first place are watching the fight while dining on their lobster lunches.

I do believe in not living beyond your means and not relying on the government, but it does feel like many of us have been put in a position where we can't be responsible and have security in old age. Property markets are cyclical, so some people will always lose out. This is why we need social housing too.

What I will say though is if you are young now, the market is dropping, so start planning for price drops. Ignore year on year figures. In a changing market (which it is now) you need to look at monthly stats and be aware there is a lag in the data too. I think in 6m the housing market will be looking very different.

It’s true that if you’re in SH (and possibly some private renters) there’s no point to a “small” private pension. It would only go on rent and CT anyway, which gets paid by benefits if you only have state pension. I think someone quoted above you get to keep 15p in the £. So the fact my employer would match my contribution means nothing. I’d still only get 15p per £. Whereas not paying into the pension gives me the full amount of money now, especially when it’s needed so much! I’m in my 50’s and had no real pension pot to speak of up till now. So when I started a new job and was enrolled into the pension, I did the sums and opted out. I won’t build up enough in the years I have left to make any difference in retirement.

So many times in pension/retirement threads, people will say any pension saving is better than none. But it isn’t always true. You have to look at your own circumstances. People with a paid off mortgage, then yes, any little will help but renters not so much.

I knew some boomers who were just like this too and could have took advantage of the favourable times but didn't. You will always get people like this. The majority of people aren't like this and this applies to all ages.

Anyway, I don't want to derail this into a boomer/snowflake thread. Policy, lack of governance and a cyclical market is the issue.

If the people who worked hard all their lives, scrimped and saved, bought their own houses, went without continue to be leant on to keep the country going then the house is going to fall down very quickly. People expect to be able to get the rewards of working all their lives. We are definitely nearly at breaking point with this.

I think things will change. People will downsize more readily or even chose to move to rental to free up equity so they can pass it to their children and avoid IHT and give them the start they need.

I think things will change. People will downsize more readily or even chose to move to rental to free up equity so they can pass it to their children and avoid IHT and give them the start they need.

From personal experience I'm not sure about this. We are a few years from downsizing but I keep my eye out for suitable do-er uppers that we could work on for a few years before moving to and down-sizing. At the same time we have friends who have been actively looking to downsize for about 4 years.

Neither of us has found anything suitable because we both want a smaller house (2-3 bedrooms) and a larger garden. Smaller properties either seem to have tiny gardens or if they have a decent sized garden have been massively extended and are now unaffordable.

Rental properties are insecure homes - why would anyone in their later years want insecurity after decades of home ownership?

Couple that together with the huge amount of tax you pay to move and that is why I think it is unlikely people will downsize more. It just isn't appealing or cost effective and if you stay in your large family home your children will inherit eventually anyway.

Fuck packing up and moving house as an OAP. Plus deposits moving costs etc.

I have heard this before @BloodyHellKen and I know it's because of the costs and the type and availability of houses to downsize to. However people have hand a choice, it's getting so bad now that there will be a shift.

Let's face it, the NHS and care isn't going to be getting better. Downsizing also means less to pay in care home fees. It makes sense to compromise and pass on to your children rather the government/council. I wonder what the government will do when there's nothing left to take.

Easier to pack up when you're early retirement than when you suddenly go downhill and need care and can't cope. End is life planning.

Sorry end OF life planing. The sensible way to manage it.

"Your OP is the Tory dream."
It has always been the sat that ma y people cannot afford to retire
In Victorian times it was the norm fgs
I think one problem is that people are not taught by parents and schools that life is F ing HARD and Competitoive
Because it is

I think one problem is that people are not taught by parents and schools that life is F ing HARD and Competitive

But everyone won a prize, nobody came last.

@Drivebye I hear what you are saying and I suppose some people will downsize as you say, but it won't be a choice, they will unfortunately be forced into it.

However, I think many people (myself included) will not downsize to free up capital because there is a lack of suitable property(and I don't mean rabbit hutch retirement properties I mean 2-3 bedroom houses with large gardens)/the costs of moving/they are not financially hard up.

I know of one family who chose to sign the family home over to the child to avoid death duty and free up capital. It all went horribly wrong when the child got divorced and met a new partner who didn't get on with the parent who was left up shit creek and evicted from the home they didn't own anymore.

That was an extreme case but I would imagine that most adults who are old enough to have paid off a mortgage and have adult children would also have enough life experience to envisage that they too could end up paddling along shit creek because life can be unpredictable.

We don’t want to down size. We’d like to future proof. There are no suitable properties to allow us to. Three years of scrutinising Rightmove and nothing. Who’d have thought a three bed bungalow with a decent garden would be a unicorn?

Bungalows are like gold dust. People don’t make them all that much now, so they always sell for a premium.

You’re right. It’s astonishing that the building industry hasn’t cottoned on that they’d be an absolute gold mine.

If its any consolation @Blossomtoes we and our neighbours who have been actively looking to downsize for 4 years have found its any small/medium property with a decent sized garden is difficult to find, not just bungalows. Properties are either decent but a miniscule garden or have been massively extended into a large garden making them too large (and expensive).

Yes, the curse of the extension. A lot of bungalows have been extended upwards too.

Boomers aren't about to die off in 10 years. The oldest are 77 now. The life expectancy for someone who's already 77 is c 90+ (m/f differences). The youngest are 57 and have c 30+ years left.

It won't be until the 'elderly' (born early 80s) millennials are reaching their own retirement age that the boomers will have mostly passed on.

So yes there will be a LOT of freed capital but it will be released over the 20 years c 2035-2055. Goodness knows what inflation will have done to that equity by then!

You just needed to get 'flat screen TVs' and 'latest smartphone' in there and we'd get ourselves a BINGO.

Older generations are much more likely to be/have been smokers. I know very few people under 45 who even have broadcast TV, never mind Sky - in contrast, my elderly mother has it because it's her main form of entertainment and she doesn't know how to use streaming services (though I'm still forever telling her she could switch to Freeview and get most of it for free...). There is more "stuff" for people to spend money on now, but a lot of old cash-sinks have fallen by the wayside - I was a lodger ten years ago with a boomer guy who must have spent tens of thousands on CDs and DVDs.

I know Gen Xers who are worrying about this now - people renting flats on their own, rising rents/leases ending means they can't afford to stay and so are looking at going back to house-sharing in their 50s. I suspect it's happening more as people get divorced later in life and realise they can't now get somewhere of their own...

Having spent over £252,000 renting.
i agree there is something wrong somewhere.

i don’t smoke, neither does dh. Don’t have sky, drive an old car. I think my tv is 40something inches.

We downsized last year, kids had moved out. Although I loved my house, 4 bed older terraced property right on the coast, we knew it would need work doing in the future. I am mid 50s, fairly fit 😂, and it was bloody hard work.

Getting rid of nearly 30 years worth of stuff, tarting up the property and physically moving. I would not want to do that at say 70, especially if you develop health problems.

if you’re thinking about downsizing do it sooner rather than later, if you can.

And pay for the packing service, it’s a game changer.

Just realised this is an old thread.
apologies, this is only my 4th post since joining yesterday.