To suggest the government incentivising downsizing

[PoinsettiaPosturing]

There seems to be a couple of issues discussed very frequently here that could be potentially helped (not solved) by the government incentivising downsizing for home owners.

There's a significant issue of property availability to buy and rent, and a huge number of older people who are single/couples in 3/4/5 bed houses. This means that younger generations are stuck in their starter homes and priced out of long term homes.
MIL & FIL have a 4 bed detached and constantly complain about the cost to heat and maintain it, but hate that it'll cost them loads in stamp duty, moving fees & solicitors costs to downsize.

Perhaps Rishi could incentivise downsizing, so if you reduce the number of bedrooms when you move it over 60, then you're relieved of stamp duty, and perhaps receive a £2,000 (debatable) grant towards moving costs and expenses.

There are also constant complaints that older people stay in their homes long after they 'should' based on significant care needs, decreasing mobility and long term repair issues.

The incentive could encourage people moving to smaller houses, flats, retirement communities or even combining households with family members.

This would hopefully:

1. Free up larger properties for families/younger people wanting to upsize
2. Hopefully mean older people have less heating and energy expenses
3. Encourage older people to move into properties more suitable to reduced mobility & care needs longer term
4. Mean older properties are restored/better maintained

I appreciate there are loads of people who want to stay in their family home until the end, and this wouldn't change that view point, but maybe a social movement towards older people reducing the size of their homes would create a bit of social contagion where it's more openly discussed?

Also, house builders could be encouraged to build more bungalows/smaller homes specifically for this scheme which perhaps are built with stair lifts in mind etc.

YABU - this will never work, ridiculous suggestion

YANBU - this has legs, you should go into politics

I think it is important to talk about generations and expectations. It can be a cliche, but there can also be lots of truths in it.

There was a huge difference between my grandmothers born 1918 and 1925 and their expectations and those of my mother (1949). My grandmothers went through rations, they were grateful. They put the heating off not because of cost but because they wanted to save energy for the planet and those after them. They saved and scrimped. One of them declined a free NHS procedure because she felt it would be a waste of money on her in old age.
My mother thinks everything she has she is entitled to and she wants to spend it living the high life. She has no concern for her carbon footprint. She thinks the world owes her stuff. The same applies to most of her friends as we have had those discussions. Regarding for example, the carbon footprint of a cruise or living in a 5 bed detached house on your own and heating it. Even if you can afford it. Even if you are paying taxes.
I am the end of Generation X and openly acknowledge that most of my peers were brainwashed into City of London working at the time. I have friends who studied medicine and became bankers… No concern for the morality of it. Yes, we pay huge taxes but we openly acknowledge now our benefits and privileges, the unfairness of the low wage economy we live in.
I think it is important that boomers critically assess their own generational expectations. I am sure many do. However, my mother and her friends are still working on that aspect. It is important to have friends and talk to people who are not your generation, to hear their viewpoints. In a capitalist society we are conditioned to believe that as long as we can afford stuff it is fine. Affording stuff is not the same as living the right (of course that is highly subjective) path. Wages and wealth do not reflect what someone deserves.
We now live in a climate crisis world and the grandchildren of the boomers are going to have it much worse, in many ways. I think that is a fact that has to be acknowledged.

i agree with mrsskyler that not everything was great years ago - i earnt 7k and my flat cost 70k. i could only afford it because my mum helped out and i had to sell it for a 1k loss in the end because of interest rates at 15%. There was a recession when i graduated and it was very hard to get jobs.

We never had any help covering the cost of childcare, and i had to go back to work when baby was 6 months as that was when maternity leave ended. not sure how others could afford to live on one wage - must have been very frugal.

For those that want to shunt me off into a flat. yes the one linked to above looked good but i doubt i can take my dog with me. And one of my main hobbies involves storing things inside some of the year - so either we'd be walking around large boxes or i would have to give it up.

my parents live in a 4 bed house.
They 'downsized' to here when they were about 70. Deliberately moved out of their rambling farm house in a village into a house on the edge of town, taxi ride away from shops etc, and more modern, easy to heat home.
They are 80 and use every single one of the rooms.
They love having space.
As they are retired they do a lot of things at home. Mum and Dad both have their own study, and Mum uses one of the spare rooms as sewing/craft room.

the extra bedrooms means that when my brother comes to visit he and the kids can stay over as it is too far to go and come back in one day.
When they bought the house, they put in a downstairs loo and utility room which can be turned into a downstairs bathroom if needed. They could add a stair lift and dad's study is downstairs and could become a downstair bedroom if needed. They have no intention of moving anywhere.

I live in a 4 bed house. My oldest has gone to uni, and dc2 will go in september.
I cannot imagine downsizing when they have all left home. On the contrary I will make one room a sewing/craft room and relish having spare rooms for people to come and stay.

It is a strange concept to me that at the very time when you have more time at home that you would want to have a smaller home.

Another Boomer attack…..🙄

My granny didn’t put the heating on so she could save money ( born way before ww2). Don’t think concern for the planet existed then. They were more concerned with personal survival.

It is not an attack! It is an analysis. If you read carefully, I also talk about my own Generation.
Clearly, the reference to putting the heating on was about when my own war generation grandparents were still alive in the 80s and 90s. They did not like waste, as a matter of principle. My own teens criticise my generation X all the time. One has to listen to the younger general and be self critical, it is very important.

The only thing that would encourage people to downsize is a falling market, and now we have seen falls for the 4th consecutive month it might be that people downsize now

But this would also affect the house price of the downsizer’s home.

I've just read that financial analysts are predicting 750,000 mortgage defaults over the next two years, on top of the fourth month of falling property prices. The outlook is fairly scary: Canada is apparently quite a similar market to the UK, and prices there are predicted to fall 30% over 12 months.

she feels that70 to 75 is the ideal window for most people to do it. I’m in that window. My life centres around playing music, gardening, voluntary work. They require, respectively, a room where I don’t disturb neighbours, a garden of reasonable size, and room to store/spread out a large amount of equipment. So downsizing now would not only affect my living space, it would also wipe out most of my activities and my social life.

70 - 75 year are not necessarily pottering ineffectually around their houses, venturing out only for shopping and medical appointments. For most of the 70 year olds in my circle, moving into a retirement home would lead to a big deterioration in quality of life.

My mil in her mid 80’s went to China. Many are still active.

So lots of cheap properties for developers to buy up then ?

Remember, the reason prices are falling is lack of people to buy with a traditional mortgage.

I hear Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are being nominated for the Taylor-Woodrow-Wimpey lifetime award next year. Bless.

A house price fall of 30% would only take us back a few years in terms of house price value though. It would affect anyone looking to remortgage who had bought relatively recently - they could struggle with negative equity - but unless you have bought within the past few years a house price drop of 30% won’t mean negative equity. That’s how nuts house price rises have been over the past few years.

@MrsSkylerWhite I'm 60 and yes it's free prescriptions- came in handy as I've just started to need them!! You can also get free eye tests (used that too) !! Also at 60 you can get a rail pass that takes 1/3 off all fares. I use that too- most other stuff kicks in at 67 -

If I could build a house for my 74 year old mother it would look like this:

Semi detached, with a smallish garden and a separate drive and a garage. It would have a large accessible downstairs loo and wetroom, sizeable kitchen, 2 separate living rooms of a decent size with lots of light, one living room would need to be adaptable to become a bedroom in the future, there would be two bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom. There would be no front door steps. There would be facilities close by including a hospital and a GP and dental practice and green spaces and the area would be vibrant. There would be a reliable bus network too. The house would be modern and well insulated with green energy sources. There would be direct wheelchair access into the garden. This is the kind of house she could live in happily until she dies. This is the kind of house I would happily move into once my 4 children leave too.
For families with 2 children, I would add 1 bedroom to the above and a slightly bigger garden. For families with 3 children, I would add 2 bedrooms and an extra downstairs living room and a bigger garden.

There is nothing like this where we live.

@Aleaiactaest Yep, I would like to downsize to a house like that too... but where are they?

@Chinnn Agree, the last three years have seen rampant price inflation so it will be the last to buy who will, disproportionately, bear the brunt of the negative equity if they are forced to sell/remortgage.

@Aleaiactaest
You can alter quite a few homes to encompass these wants. Which are actually far too much! Most 3 bed semis can be extended. People can insulate their homes. They can remove steps and get ramps etc. Few older folk use wheelchairs in the home. If they do, get doors widened, and make use of grants to stay in your house. It’s possible. We have air source heat pumps m. So could you. All you seem to want is others doing it for you. Try and see what you can do for yourself.

Im bemused by the separate garage and drive? Why? Mega expensive for a small house. I can also tell you why all this is nit built - the market isn’t big enough! It’s over fussy and actually most people won’t pay the extra for what they probably won’t ever need. There you gave it. Cost snd market forces.

@TizerorFizz - these are not my demands, but my mother’s. I do see it from her point of view, she has lived in a large house all her life and can afford to keep living there. Of course she needs a drive - not being able to park outside your house is a big concern for elderly people when they have been shopping (and yes I have trialled online food shopping, she hates it, she loves to pop out for bits and claims she does not eat enough for a large food shop and has different fancies on different days!) The garage is for storage and looking ahead to park her car when carers might come in the future. Her current house is 5 storey, not the right plumbing downstairs for a wetroom, stairs everywhere, including into the garden. It is not really adaptable and you cannot make it “green” in a cost effective manner. You will never recoup the spend in that regard. We have looked into the options for her.

So people like my mum will continue to rattle around in her home and then bedblock (probably at the end for her, because she has private healthcare for routine stuff) because society and house building hasn’t caught up with the forever ageing population. Being the OP’s point. I really think she would move for the kind of thing I described but there isn’t anything like it in my locality.

@Aleaiactaest
She cannot have everything though. It’s just too difficult. As she cannot, it’s her reason not to move and it’s unreasonable. Get a shed for storage. If you need careers you should not be driving. Cater can park on the street. Why not? Get that message across. My DM has food deliveries. Get that sorted. 5 stories is ludicrous. It took DM 10 years to agree to move from her previous huge Victorian semi, but what options is there? Just explain it won’t be you caring for her!

@Aleaiactaest
Does your mother not see how ridiculous her current property maybe for her as she age's. It may shorten her life. I have family that insisted on staying in their home and not making appropriate modifications (eg downstairs loo/bathroom and downstairs bedroom) after resultant fall needed to go to care home. Care home life expectancy is I believe circa 2 years (their's was less 😔 😪). We really tried to convince them , they had the money and could do these changes. I have told DH how we will be looking for practical downsizing when the time comes (think 70ish).

My criteria is short walk to a pint of milk, gp easily taxi accessible. Parking space. Maybe bit of garden. Kitchen with table space, 2 good sized bed rooms (maybe a third single room), spacious sittingroom, all on 1 floor.

@yoyo1234 - yes we have told her pretty much just that. She won’t listen, she is currently “only” 74. We had the same issue with my father who had cancer so she actually saw it and experienced the impracticality. You cannot force them to do things and most often, they will only listen once it is too late and have regrets at that point. And sometimes those regrets come out just as they are dying, it is a sad state of affairs.
It isn’t just my mum, same applies to most of her friends and you will have seen the same on this thread too from some posters. It is easy for me to say now that when I am old, I will downsize and make loads of adaptations and be sensible, but until the time comes, god knows how I will react. A house full of stuff and memories is really hard to part with unless a lovely easy alternative option is presented on a plate. And many old people had having builders in and adaptations made. That is a fact.

That was meant to say that it is common for elderly people to hate having builders in the house and adaptations made.

I like this proposal OP in the way that it offers a solution to many of the people 60+ who do want to downsize but, as you stated, don't want to pay the stamp duty and other fees.

I also have clients who have stated they'd love to move to a bungalow rather than a house, or even to an assisted living facility, but bought their house decades ago and don't want to deal with the hassle of the paperwork etc these days as it's more complex than when they bought the house. Perhaps a scheme, perhaps run by volunteers, to assist those with paperwork who are purely putting off selling for this reason may be another idea too.

Neither of these solutions mean that anyone has to leave their home if they don't want to, it just opens up the opportunities and takes away some of the barriers for those who do want to downsize but currently don't feel able to.

How many people really want to get somewhere else? Most people already live in fairly small homes. Those of us in big homes really can find somewhere else if we want to and are reasonable.

My street is literally full of under-occupied homes. Our direct neighbours each side are single women, kids flown the nest years ago, one's a 4 bed, the other's a 3 bed. All the 5 houses opposite us on the other side are 4 and 5 bed homes - 2 are single occupancy, the other 3 are couples - all pensioners.

All are getting older (most moved in when the estate was built in the late 70s, had children here, children went off to uni, never came back). All the singletons are lonely and getting more and more infirm - they've no one to help them move, their children have their own families, mostly hundreds of miles away. They'd need a lot more than a bit of financial support to "incentivise" them to move, they'd need some real life "support" from people to help them find a new home, help them deal with estate agents and solicitors, etc., help them downsize and pack.

That's reality in the regions away from the big cities where the best jobs are located. Children never return as there are no decent jobs for them to return for. Without close family, the elderly are isolated and it's easier for them to maintain the status quo and put up with rattling around in huge houses than to deal with complicated things alone, like moving house.

(All these houses are now also deteriorating as the occupants struggle to maintain them, don't like risking unknown tradesmen, etc. It's a great shame really. The younger neighbours like ourselves and a few others offer advice and give them names of tradesmen we've used and trusted, but they still struggle with decision making, not really knowing/understanding what needs doing etc. Again, money isn't the obstacle, it's lack of confidence, not wanting the stress/anxiety etc).

@OopsAnotherOne

I also have clients who have stated they'd love to move to a bungalow rather than a house, or even to an assisted living facility, but bought their house decades ago and don't want to deal with the hassle of the paperwork etc these days as it's more complex than when they bought the house. Perhaps a scheme, perhaps run by volunteers, to assist those with paperwork who are purely putting off selling for this reason may be another idea too.

I fully agree, and alluded to that in my earlier post. "Life" is not a lot more complicated these days. I'm an accountant and do my best with elderly clients, but many aren't "suited" to modern life. Many have let their passports lapse and have the old paper driving licences (without a photo), so struggle with ID checks required by banks, estate agents, solicitors, etc who often aren't very helpful in accepting alternative forms of ID - the old "computer says no" approach. Even trying to set up an online tax account for them hits snags due to lack of passport, no P60 (obviously if they're not working), etc. They tend to just retreat into themselves as they get to the stage of expecting everything "official" to be difficult and stressful so take the line of least resistance and just not bother.

Some kind of volunteer scheme to help them navigate all the aspects of moving house, and even just to advocate for them would make a massive difference to many. I do a lot of pro-bono work doing tax returns for the elderly in our village - often their tax return is remarkably quick and simple, sometimes just 5 minutes, but they've spent literally hours trying to navigate forms, on hold trying to phone HMRC for advice who then tell them the wrong answer, etc. It's no surprise some just want to maintain the status quo to avoid the stress of it all.