Older people to be offered incentives to downsize homes

NotInventedHere

Yet another transfer of wealth to the boomers.

pc7

I know my grandparents wouldn't be able to deal with estate agents, solicitors and all that jazz, is there anything in it to assist with that side of things?

el Fenomeno

AlanG wrote: »

Unless they change the rules on the Fair Deal Scheme any incentive is destined to fail. Currently if an older person wants to protect their kids inheritance (which most do) then the best thing they can do is buy a bigger house for their primary residence. If you downsize all your nest egg can be taken under Fair Deal. Money (70%) wrapped up in your primary residence is protected.

Feel like an idiot, but I don't understand this. I've tried searching how the Fair Deal scheme works but I can't tie it back to your post. Could someone explain this for a simpleton like me?

antiskeptic

Peoples attitude to housing is a little bit like Newtons law of motion: objects travelling in a straight line will continue to do so forever unless acted upon by an exterior force. The current generation are driven by the force of expectation of ever onwards and upwards. They expect and believe they should have more rhan their parents (because their parents had more than their parents)

And so kitchen/day living space and playrooms, holidays abroad, a family saloon and an SUV for school runs.

However, the exterior forces loom. It now takes two earners to maintain things, our economy is uber vulnerable to shocks, shock initiators abound.

The question is whether you are an early adopter for what appears to becoming a new reality. Or whether you turn out to be one who fiddled whilst Rome burnt.

antiskeptic

pc7 wrote: »

I know my grandparents wouldn't be able to deal with estate agents, solicitors and all that jazz, is there anything in it to assist with that side of things?

A business model beckons. Selling your house/sourcing and buying another/legals/surveys/decluttering and moving/organising remodelling of the new house.

Certainly something to attract the wealthier client with a boutique agency.

NIMAN

Pussyhands wrote: »

This scheme is never going to work. People don't want to downsize. They want to stay in their home and stay near their neighbours.

This is true to an extent.

My own mother is in her late 70s. She's been living in the same house since 1970.

Around her in the street there is maybe 10 other properties where there's neighbours she's known since then, and maybe the 80s for some others.

I don't think she'd be keen on walking away and leaving all these people she would chat to on a near-daily basis. The only solution is to get a handful of them to move together, but what's the likelihood of getting 5 couples/widows whatever to sell up at the same time? Very slim.

Emme

antiskeptic wrote: »

Assuming your comparing apple with apples, the furious couple could also let out rooms and go to spain 4 times a year.

The "furious couple" have two children who are in one bedroom and they are in the other. The wife's younger sister is renting the other bedroom while she is in college and that helps them a bit with the mortgage payments. As regards going to Spain 4 times a year, they both work full time and at the moment they are using their annual leave to any DIY on the house that doesn't necessitate a professional.

antiskeptic wrote: »

And bequeath a sizeable chunk of unearned capital gain to their kids. I mean, they didn't exactly obtain all that capital appreciation by sweat of own brow.

They scrimped, saved and went without to get the deposit on a former council house in an area where house values have skyrocketed. They earned every cent for the deposit themselves. There is no guarantee that the house will rise in value.

antiskeptic wrote: »

Given the circumstances of significant house price inflation from the time they got/serviced a mortgage, you could say they've done better 'on the back of others' than the council tenant

Are you condemning people working their backsides off and making sacrifices so they can have a roof over their heads? Everything they get they have to pay for.

How do you know the house prices will inflate? When the council tenant in question got her house it would have been worth a lot less on the market than the "furious couple" paid for their house. Indeed, house prices in certain parts of the city have stagnated or gone down a small amount since they bought their house.

antiskeptic

NIMAN wrote: »

This is true to an extent.

My own mother is in her late 70s. She's been living in the same house since 1970.

Around her in the street there is maybe 10 other properties where there's neighbours she's known since then, and maybe the 80s for some others.

I don't think she'd be keen on walking away and leaving all these people she would chat to on a near-daily basis. The only solution is to get a handful of them to move together, but what's the likelihood of getting 5 couples/widows whatever to sell up at the same time? Very slim.

Its too late for this current generation but planners could easily insist on varied development 2,3,4 beds.

It provides somewhere for downsizers to stay in the community and prevents the situation where you get estates filled with older folk who can't move meaning a long period of deadness and spotted influx of new blood until such time as the elderly shuffle off in droves.

I live close to such an estate. Everyone bought as young couples back in the day and the green out front had 50-60 kids running around. Now there are only 8 kids with new ones being added on slowly as someone (usually a widow) dies or goes into a home.

By spreading out the number of generations you maintain a healthy number of kids/youth - keeping life and activity going perpetually.

antiskeptic

Emme wrote: »

The "furious couple" have two children who are in one bedroom and they are in the other. The wife's younger sister is renting the other bedroom while she is in college and that helps them a bit with the mortgage payments. As regards going to Spain 4 times a year, they both work full time and at the moment they are using their annual leave to any DIY on the house that doesn't necessitate a professional.

So not apples vs apples then. I'm sure the woman now renting out rooms wasn't always doing so: that those rooms were occupied by family. She may have even had a lodger (as we once did) to help pay the bills.

Fast forwarding a few years and this couple can too rent out 2 rooms. There's little point in comparing apples and pears when looking for unfairness.

They scrimped, saved and went without to get the deposit on a former council house in an area where house values have skyrocketed. They earned every cent for the deposit themselves. There is no guarantee that the house will rise in value.

You seem to be arguing against social housing? It's always been the case than folk who buy scrimp and save whereas the social housing recipient get's a relative freebie.

The woman in question can't help that housing has gone the way it has (that older social estates are privately desirable due to location). Usually going social means living in less desirable areas - the comparative scrimping and saving provides benefit.

Again apples (the lady in question lived in a less desirable area at the same life stage of the now furious couple) vs pears (the area now being desirable due to location/diluting of undesirable "social housing effect"

Are you condemning people working their backsides off and making sacrifices so they can have a roof over their heads? Everything they get they have to pay for.

Not at all. Nor am I condemning a woman at another life stage for the accidental benefit accruing to her. Had the Irish Property Dice fallen another way, she'd be in a council estate with no demand for rooms whilst the furious couple were living it up in a mansion in Dalkey at a fraction of their current mortgage cost.

How do you know the house prices will inflate? When the council tenant in question got her house it would have been worth a lot less on the market than the "furious couple" paid for their house. Indeed, house prices in certain parts of the city have stagnated or gone down a small amount since they bought their house.

I was assuming apples vs apples - that the furious couple were at the same life stage. I don't think there's much point in comparing apples vs. pears. It'd be like comparing someone who is retired now on a pension of 66% of last salary with someone who is mid-career and has no company pension and can't afford to contribute much to one. You can't really take the former to task for the circumstances of the time they lived in. If they happen to have gotten it better than the current generation, well that's the luck of the draw.

Pussyhands

NIMAN wrote: »

This is true to an extent.

My own mother is in her late 70s. She's been living in the same house since 1970.

Around her in the street there is maybe 10 other properties where there's neighbours she's known since then, and maybe the 80s for some others.

I don't think she'd be keen on walking away and leaving all these people she would chat to on a near-daily basis. The only solution is to get a handful of them to move together, but what's the likelihood of getting 5 couples/widows whatever to sell up at the same time? Very slim.

Exactly.

It all sounds great in theory - old person has empty rooms because kids moved out - old person wants something smaller and easier to heat - old person wants something with easier access.

But the reality is - old person lives in the family home for 40+ years - old person has neighbours they keep company with - old person feels safe and secure in the house they've been in 40+ years - old person just installs ramps, lifts, showers to adapt.

Then add in the probability that the kids would rather want to keep the bigger house for themselves and this idea is a bum one by and large.

Electric Sheep

NIMAN wrote: »

This is true to an extent.

My own mother is in her late 70s. She's been living in the same house since 1970.

Around her in the street there is maybe 10 other properties where there's neighbours she's known since then, and maybe the 80s for some others.

I don't think she'd be keen on walking away and leaving all these people she would chat to on a near-daily basis. The only solution is to get a handful of them to move together, but what's the likelihood of getting 5 couples/widows whatever to sell up at the same time? Very slim.

A small development of senior-friendly two bedroom apartments, ground floor only and walk in baths would probably shift quite a few couples fairly quickly.

downtheroad

Electric Sheep wrote: »

A small development of senior-friendly two bedroom apartments, ground floor only and walk in baths would probably shift quite a few couples fairly quickly.

Government should CPO church land to build exactly this type of development, and build a smaller church on the site too. There is a huge church in Finglas that is doing something along these lines, as the attendance no longer warrants such a large building. https://www.thejournal.ie/finglas-church-closure-3220514-Feb2017/

The church and the gaa are the only organisations that have sizeable land in most towns of Ireland, and we saw what happened when it was proposed to dig up a GAA pitch in Glasnevin to facilitate building the Metro, there was uproar. Church lands might be easier to redesign. And then folks can stay living in their locality, I'd even restrict access to those who have lived their lives in the area.

antiskeptic

downtheroad wrote: »

Government should CPO church land to build exactly this type of development, and build a smaller church on the site too. There is a huge church in Finglas that is doing something along these lines, as the attendance no longer warrants such a large building. https://www.thejournal.ie/finglas-church-closure-3220514-Feb2017/

The church and the gaa are the only organisations that have sizeable land in most towns of Ireland, and we saw what happened when it was proposed to dig up a GAA pitch in Glasnevin to facilitate building the Metro, there was uproar. Church lands might be easier to redesign. And then folks can stay living in their locality, I'd even restrict access to those who have lived their lives in the area.

I think you'd find that discriminatory. It's one thing to CPO half of peoples gardens to widen a road. Quite another thing to deliberately target a particular group for a landgrab because your not prepared to develop the land aplenty in your own possession.

That would be nationalisation and we're firmly stuck on the teat of neoliberalism. You cant have it both ways

Marcusm

NotInventedHere wrote: »

Yet another transfer of wealth to the boomers.

Increasing the quantum of sellers might actually dampen house price inflation.

mariaalice

NIMAN wrote: »

This is true to an extent.

My own mother is in her late 70s. She's been living in the same house since 1970.

Around her in the street there is maybe 10 other properties where there's neighbours she's known since then, and maybe the 80s for some others.

I don't think she'd be keen on walking away and leaving all these people she would chat to on a near-daily basis. The only solution is to get a handful of them to move together, but what's the likelihood of getting 5 couples/widows whatever to sell up at the same time? Very slim.

However, if there was a tiny bit of infill land near the estate 3 or 4 one or two bedroom bungalows could be built they would be snapped up its a matter of tweaking the planning permission in situations like that.

downtheroad

antiskeptic wrote: »

I think you'd find that discriminatory. It's one thing to CPO half of peoples gardens to widen a road. Quite another thing to deliberately target a particular group for a landgrab because your not prepared to develop the land aplenty in your own possession.

That would be nationalisation and we're firmly stuck on the teat of neoliberalism. You cant have it both ways

Quite possibly. I just think it is the most obvious bank of land in pretty much every town in the country, which in many towns is being grossly underutilised. I know my own town has 3 Catholic churches which are nowhere near capacity, replacing 1 or 2 of these with fit for purpose living for the elderly might be a better use of the space, with the remaining church serving the needs of those who still use it.

Most of the comments in this thread have stated that people will not want to move out of their house because there is not sufficient appropriate accommodation in their locality. I know this is the case for my own parents, who, since me and my siblings have moved out, are living in a large 4 bedroom house that would be far better utilised by a young family instead.