Last week, I wrote an article on the plight
of the Canterbury 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.
However, my real concern for Canterbury
homeowners and Canterbury landlords alike, as I discussed a couple of months
ago, is our mature members of the population of Canterbury. In that previous article,
I stated that the current OAP’s (65+ yrs in age) in Canterbury were sitting on £1.49bn
of residential property ... however, I didn’t talk in depth about the ‘Baby
Boomers’, the 50yr to 64yr old Canterbury 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 Canterbury, there are 2,189 households
whose owners are aged between 50yrs and 64yrs and about to pay their mortgage
off. That property is worth, in today’s prices, £746.8m. There are an
additional 2,617 mortgage free Canterbury households, owned by 50yr to 64yr
olds, worth £892.8m in today’s prices, meaning...
Canterbury Baby Boomers and Canterbury OAP’s
are sitting
on £3.13bn worth of Canterbury Property
These Canterbury Baby Boomers and OAP’s are
sitting on 9,175 Canterbury 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 Canterbury (and the Country)
homeowners to downsize at the right time will also enable younger Canterbury 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 Canterbury
and the Planning Dept. should play their part, as should landlords and property
investors to ensure Canterbury’s ‘Generation Trapped’ can find suitable
property locally, close to friends, family and facilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment