Last week, I wrote an article on the plight of the Lancaster 20 something’s often referred to by the press as ‘Generation Rent’. Attitudes to renting have certainly changed over the last twenty years and as my analysis suggested, this change is likely to be permanent. In the article, whilst a minority of this Generation Rent feel trapped, the majority don’t – making renting a choice not a predicament. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) predicted that the private rental sector is likely to grow substantially by 1.8m households across the UK in the next 8 years, with demand for rental property unlikely to slow and newly formed households continuing to choose the rental market as opposed to buying.
A typical Lancaster home which was owned by an older lady wanting to downsize. In this instance we have successfully helped her!
However, my real concern for Lancaster homeowners and Lancaster landlords alike, as I discussed a couple of months ago, is our mature members of the population of Lancaster. In that previous article, I stated that the current OAP’s (65+ yrs in age) in Lancaster were sitting on £797.3m of residential property … however, I didn’t talk in depth about the ‘Baby Boomers’, the 50yr to 64yr old Lancaster people and what their properties are worth – and more importantly, how the current state of affairs could be holding back those younger Generation Renters.
In Lancaster, there are 2,800 households whose owners are aged between 50yrs and 64yrs and about to pay their mortgage off. That property is worth, in today’s prices, £537.4m. There are an additional 3,319 mortgage free Lancaster households, owned by 50yr to 64yr olds, worth £637.1m in today’s prices, meaning…
Lancaster Baby Boomers and Lancaster OAP’s are sitting
on £1.97bn worth of Lancaster Property
These Lancaster Baby Boomers and OAP’s are sitting on 10,273 Lancaster properties and many of them feel trapped in their homes, and hence I have dubbed them ‘Generation Trapped’.
Recently, the English Housing Survey stated 49% of these properties owned by the Generation Trapped, as I have dubbed them, are ‘under-occupied’ (under-occupied classed as having at least two bedrooms more than needed). These houses could be better utilised by younger families, but research carried out by the Prudential suggest in Britain it’s estimated that only one in ten older people downsize while in the USA for example one in five do so.
The growing numbers of older homeowners who want to downsize their home are often put off by the difficulties of moving. The charity United for all Ages, suggested recently many are put off by the lack of housing options, 19% by the hassle and cost of moving, 14% by having to declutter their possessions and 14% by family reasons such as staying close to children and grandchildren.
Helping mature Lancaster (and the Country) homeowners to downsize at the right time will also enable younger Lancaster people to find the homes they need – meaning every generation wins, both young and old. However, to ensure downsizing works, as a Country, we need more choices for these ‘last time buyers’.
Theresa May and Philip Hammond can do their part and consider stamp duty tax breaks for downsizers, our local Council in Lancaster and the Planning Dept. should play their part, as should landlords and property investors to ensure Lancaster’s ‘Generation Trapped’ can find suitable property locally, close to friends, family and facilities.