Just 186,000 Homes are Left for 2m Elderly Homeowners

Just 186,000 Homes are Left for 2m Elderly Homeowners

Last week, we reported that retired homeowners are cashing in on property wealth at the expense of struggling first time buyers. But there may be a very obvious reason for this – elderly homeowners have no smaller homes to move to.

In its Right-Size Report, Inspired Villages found that Britain’s elderly homeowners are not moving from their family homes because there’s a severe lack of variety and quantity of retirement housing stock.

The research found that, in total, there are around 720,000 homes across various retirement housing types in England and Wales – enough to house just 7% of the nation’s elderly homeowners.

The Right-Size Report, which maps the supply and demand of Britain’s retirement housing, also found that 1.8m elderly homeowners who would normally leave their family homes can’t because there is nowhere suitable for them to move to.

If you are looking to move, however, Portsmouth is the best place to consider, as it has the most retirement housing units for ownership.

Hyndburn and Caerphilly are the worst, with the fewest number of units available.

A quarter (25%) of people say they would like to invest in a retirement property, despite there being only enough units for 2.7% to do so.

And housing supply is definitely the problem – since 2000, while the older population has grown, as few as 5,500 retirement housing units per year have been built on average.

Using this data, Inspired Villages mapped the supply and demand of Britain’s retirement housing, considering what it could be like in 20 years’ time as a result of the country’s rapidly ageing population.

While it certainly appears that Britain’s elderly homeowners would like to move into smaller properties to free up homes for younger first time buyers, it doesn’t look like a likely solution until the country’s housing stock rapidly increases.