Lack of housing is all our fault for not moving into rabbit hutches!

[stevensfo]

Sorry, not sure if this should be here, Jokers Corner or somewhere else.

Over-65s refusing to downsize are stopping young families getting on the property ladder, says Zoopla.

Older homeowners who are staying in homes that are larger than they need are driving a national shortage of three-bedroom homes, according to the property website.

Two fifths of homeowners aged over 65 live in a home that is larger than they need, meaning they are locking 2.6 million homes out of the market that could otherwise be purchased by young families and first-time buyers.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/over-65s-stop ... 00192.html

So we're meant to feel guilty for not asking the prison governor for a smaller cell?

Over 65s can probably remember when houses were a bit bigger!!

What is not discussed is the fact that houses in the UK are among the smallest in Europe. As I discovered many years ago, a 4-bedroomed house actually means 1 x acceptable bedroom, 1 x smallish bedroom, plus two cell-sized cavities that have been painted and labelled 'bedroom'.

Also not discussed is the famous ratio of average house price: average salary.

But hey, ho, who cares about reality.

Over 65? Hang your head in shame, ring that bell and do the march of shame down your high street.

Then sell up and buy that penthouse in Tenerife!


Steve

[richfool]

I was wondering whether there might be a sudden tranche of very cheap winter flights available to sunny Rwanda, and if Rwanda might start doing long-term retirement visas, so that some of us older ones can jump ship (an expression about sinking ships springs to mind), and thus get away from the overcrowding and chaos here. It might then release some housing stock here in the UK.

[Lootman]

What is not discussed is the fact that houses in the UK are among the smallest in Europe. As I discovered many years ago, a 4-bedroomed house actually means 1 x acceptable bedroom, 1 x smallish bedroom, plus two cell-sized cavities that have been painted and labelled 'bedroom'.

One of my sons bought a 2BR-1BA house and converted ot into a 4BR-2BA house by (of course) dividing up the large rooms into smaller ones.

He then had the property valued and it came in at £200K more than he paid for it. Buyers focus on the number of rooms more than the size of them.

I am not going to downsize and do not feel guilty about having space and rooms that I do not use. It is my property and I should be able to do what I want with it, which includes nothing if I so choose.

[bungeejumper]

We're not refusing to downsize from Bungee Towers. We're enjoying the space and the freedom that we've been building and restoring and bloody well saving up and paying for for the last fifty odd years. (If you count our previous homes.)

And turning a couple of our spare bedrooms into craft and music and exercise spaces for our whole families. And enjoying the 19th century garden that we rescued from neglect 30 years ago, mini-Heligan-style, and which we know perfectly well would get ripped straight out of the ground by a modern family in need of somewhere where the feral sprogs can play football.

And anyway, why shouldn't we belong here? We've built the community, and we've established our roots here, and we stay fit by working bloody hard at all this. And honestly, you'd hate it here anyway. Slow broadband, no fibre, no mobile signal, no buses, and no takeaways. Nasty smelly country air with mucky cowpats and unmade roads and the ghostly calls of owls sounding off all through the night. Not fit for use at all, in fact. So off to the suburbs with you. Poky and congested, I know, but you'll thank us some day for saving you the torment.

BJ

[scotview]

And turning a couple of our spare bedrooms into craft and music and exercise spaces for our whole families.
BJ

Yip we've done the same, I've a nice art room. In fact, I've just looked out some unfinished oil paintings and treated myself to new water based oils from Winsor and Newton. That should get me busy over this winter and away from the ever depressing news on the telly, there's been far too much of that lately.

We've decided we'd be giving up far too much moving, so wont be any downsizing here for another 10 years, so there !

[Tedx]

We're the same really. I guess you could say we have an excess of space living in a 'family' home as we do.

But I have my office, we have an exercise room. I had until recently a movie room (now our bedroom - we like to change things around now and again). I have a nice low maintenance garden with room to extend the house if need be (in our case, maybe a downstairs bed/bathroom if the time comes), plently of parking, full fibre broadband. I have the sea in one direction and the forests and mountains in the other. There are 2 primary schools and one high school nearby. A short-ish walk to a supermarket and a short drive to the main town.

So I guess a family would love the opportunity to buy my house and I guess Zoopla and the like would love to keep their plates spinning ever longer.

......But that's just hard cheese innit?

[bungeejumper]

Yip we've done the same, I've a nice art room. In fact, I've just looked out some unfinished oil paintings and treated myself to new water based oils from Winsor and Newton.

Aaah, my art group are all going on about those water based oils, which sound rather like a contradiction in terms, and maybe I'll give them a go. But first I'm going to have to build a wardrobe-sized cupboard for the acrylics and the pastels and the new easel(s) and the stacks of stretched canvases and the (continued on page 94).

Bloody hell, we need a bigger house!

BJ

[Gerry557]

So it's OK to live in a property that is too large if you are under 65. What if only one of you is over 65? What happens on your 65th birthday that causes this problem.

Fortunately I have more than 3 bedrooms so I'm not going to be part of the 3 bed problem.

[CliffEdge]

We downsized. It's great but that was our choice. Most of our friends haven't downsized. Why should they if they don't want to?

Anyway this is just another load of old twaddle that you're subjected to constantly on the meeja.

There is no shortage of living space. Equality is the enemy of fairness as I've said before.

Modern Britain is now completely stupid.

BTW, I walked in on my wife watching TV the other night. The weirdest advert I've seen for a while came on. It had Waitrose appended to it.

[Lootman]

We downsized. It's great but that was our choice. Most of our friends haven't downsized. Why should they if they don't want to?

Voluntary downsizing is fine, of course. One might choose to do that because a large house and garden is a lot of work to tend, clean, maintain etc. I solved that problem by hiring a gardener, a cleaner and so on.

There should be no attempt to force folks to downsize, nor make them feel guilty for not doing so. But the government could create financial incentives to do so, e.g. no council tax for 10 years if you downsize?

[Rhyd6]

Well the gaze into the crystal ball worked well for us. We moved into what were two small holiday lets and turned them into one still smallish house but at least now we can swing the odd cat around. Best of all that Grade A idiot Dripford can't charge us 300% Council Tax for daring to try and make money from holiday lets. Daughter and her hubby safely ensconced in farm house across the yard and rather like others we can enjoy the fruits of our labours until those thieves in the Sennedd devise another way of relieving us of our hard earned.

Luckily we have enough grandkids to keep the marauders at bay for a few more generations.

R6

[scrumpyjack]

Some of our friends have/are in process of downsizing, others not. Usually it is for reasons of practicality
-garden too big to manage
-want to be walking distance from shops, trains etc
-present house too remote as they get older
Etc, etc
I don’t think for any of them has it been a financial decision because the costs of selling/buying/doing up etc etc are so huge, they eat up most of any price differential.
Those that stay put simply get more help with the garden and so on. They don’t want to leave a lifetime’s memories behind them.
In any case, none of their houses would suit the proverbial young couple on a budget!
Perhaps it would make a difference for some if there was no stamp duty on the house being bought?
HMG should stay out of this!

[SalvorHardin]

Housing and downsizing cropped up this afternoon at our monthly moderately inebriated meeting, what one of the wives calls "Last of the Summer Wine" (I'm the baby of the group at a mere age 60). Triggered in part by one of the group now living in retirement housing.

Opinion was it's none of anyone else's business. If you can afford to live where you and want to carry on then good luck to you and those objecting can feck off.

Shortage of housing indicates that more building is needed. Alternatively stop promoting policies that require more housing units. Build European-style apartments and be ruthless with the anti-social scumbags who disrupt lives in multo-occupancy buildings.

Later on Joe Haldeman's book "The Forever War" cropped up (most of the group have read it). It's a 1970s science fiction classic that's an allegory about the Vietnam War. The story is that humanity is in an interstellar war where time dilation has a massive effect. The first group of soldiers return home after a few months in the field, to find that 27 years have passed and the world has changed. One of the developments is the "illegal residence", the crime of occupying a living space that is larger than you need. Coming to a country close to us in the near future methinks...

[Lootman]

Later on Joe Haldeman's book "The Forever War" cropped up (most of the group have read it). It's a 1970s science fiction classic that's an allegory about the Vietnam War. The story is that humanity is in an interstellar war where time dilation has a massive effect. The first group of soldiers return home after a few months in the field, to find that 27 years have passed and the world has changed. One of the developments is the "illegal residence", the crime of occupying a living space that is larger than you need. Coming to a country close to us in the near future methinks...

I believe that Holland has some pesky law that limits the size of your home based on the size of your family. OK Holland is a very crowded place but even so that goes too far. The government should stay out of my home.

[88V8]

Over-65s refusing to downsize are stopping young families getting on the property ladder, says Zoopla.
So we're meant to feel guilty for not asking the prison governor for a smaller cell?

Those who opt for more than two children should feel guilt because they selfishly decided that they have a right to increase the population.
There is no housing shortage, of any size.
There are too many people.

And some of them have arrived by boat.

In fact, the so-called shortage does have the benefit of deterring folks from having more children, so from that pov, long may it continue.

V8

[CliffEdge]

Later on Joe Haldeman's book "The Forever War" cropped up (most of the group have read it). It's a 1970s science fiction classic that's an allegory about the Vietnam War. The story is that humanity is in an interstellar war where time dilation has a massive effect. The first group of soldiers return home after a few months in the field, to find that 27 years have passed and the world has changed. One of the developments is the "illegal residence", the crime of occupying a living space that is larger than you need. Coming to a country close to us in the near future methinks...

I believe that Holland has some pesky law that limits the size of your home based on the size of your family. OK Holland is a very crowded place but even so that goes too far. The government should stay out of my home.

An Englishman's home is his castle.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/di ... his-castle

Incidentally I learned some strange things about the rabbits around Dunsford recently but that's probably for another thread.

[Lanark]

My proposal to fix this would be when selling one house and buying another the stamp duty would be based on the difference in price, if the house you buy is cheaper you'd pay zero.

If would also make it easier to move house for work, if replacing one house for another of equal value there would be no tax to pay.

[Bminusrob]

This was really a very silly article, where someone from Zoopla was moaning that they don't have enough houses to sell, so they are trying to blame older people. The Telegraph did its usual job of reporting what Zoopla said with no context, or putting the other side.

The other side, as I see it is that moving house is very expensive, there is a shortage of suitable houses for older people to move to, and as many people have poined out, all these spare rooms are only spare part of the time. We have many visitors, both family and friends. To add to this, you also need to factor in the disruption to people's lives when they move from a home they may well have lived in for several decades, moving away from friends and neighbours and facilities to a new area.

Zoopla should be ashamed of their money grabbing antics.

[Gerry557]

My proposal to fix this would be when selling one house and buying another the stamp duty would be based on the difference in price, if the house you buy is cheaper you'd pay zero.

If would also make it easier to move house for work, if replacing one house for another of equal value there would be no tax to pay.

Great, I can sell my 2 bed semi in London and buy my mansion in Lincolnshire



The government did try something similar with council houses. When the kids moved out you were expected to move to a smaller property or pay extra for keeping a house that was too big for your needs. That didn't go down well either.

[SimonS]

My proposal to fix this would be when selling one house and buying another the stamp duty would be based on the difference in price, if the house you buy is cheaper you'd pay zero.

If would also make it easier to move house for work, if replacing one house for another of equal value there would be no tax to pay.

Great, I can sell my 2 bed semi in London and buy my mansion in Lincolnshire



The government did try something similar with council houses. When the kids moved out you were expected to move to a smaller property or pay extra for keeping a house that was too big for your needs. That didn't go down well either.

Ah yes, the reviled Bedroom Tax! Implemented it would seem as a response to the suggestion by one of the Opposition parties that this would form part of their election manifesto , something to appeal to "that" section of their target electorate. Along with fervid support for punishing Boomers for stealing the economy and so on.

Locally a planning refusal at local, district and county level has been overturned, the developer bought a house with a reasonable space and wants to build a hideous monstrosity.Chatting to him I mentioned the wide dislike of the proposal. " Don't care, I bought the house to make a lot f money from the garden so I could afford to get somewhere in London. Once the buildings complete I'm out of here".

Community spirit: zero, community support :zero, contribution to politician: high.