Top of the ladder
In its response to the acute housing shortage facing the UK (the shortfall is estimated at 200,000 homes each year), the Government has tended to focus its efforts on increasing routes to home ownership among first-time buyers – but getting people onto the first rung of the housing ladder does not guarantee that they will be able to move up it.
One way to help address this issue is to increase the availability of suitable housing for the people at the top of the ladder – older people – who would in turn vacate larger properties, increasing the supply of housing at all rungs of the ladder. Only 2 per cent of the current UK housing stock is dedicated retirement housing – far less than in most other countries with comparable populations of older people. This small supply of retirement housing creates a bottleneck in the housing market that will only intensify as our population continues to age.
Older people may also see their own wellbeing negatively affected by the lack of housing options for them, as many continue living in large, unsuitable properties, when a smaller purpose-designed property may suit them better, be cheaper and easier to maintain and manage, and improve their ability to remain healthy and independent for longer.
Many policy and research organisations have identified a need for housing policy to address the housing needs of an ageing population, and we are not short of potential solutions to these problems – from classifying older people’s housing as a form of affordable housing, to building more bungalows, to incentivising downsizing by exempting older people from stamp duty on their smaller purchase.
This project seeks to assemble the arguments for a concerted effort to build more specialist retirement housing for older people by bringing together new and existing evidence related to why older people are not currently able to move (on both the supply and demand side) and what would need to change to make this a more attractive and feasible option for more older people.
Methodology
Over the course of of the project, we will carry out a mixture of desk-based research, a newly commissioned survey of older people, and in-depth interviews with key figures from the fields of housing and ageing. In addition, research will be conducted to provide a more accurate and up to date estimate of the value of housing equity held among older people.
Using the survey data – which will explore older peoples’ willingness to downsize and the reasons why they do not do so or do not want to – we will gain an up to date snapshot of the potential size of demand for housing designed for older people, and model the number of properties that could be made available if a proper downsizing policy was in place to meet the demand from older homeowners.
The report of our findings will be published in September 2013. In addition, we will also be discussing this research and its implications at a series of events at this year’s Party Conferences – see our Party Conference listings for more details.
This project is supported by the Home Builders Federation.