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anotheoldgit | 09:53 Fri 18th Sep 2015 | News
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3239243/Anger-financial-watchdog-tells-elderly-downsize-tackle-housing-shortage.html

They are telling our elderly to down size because of the house shortages, and yet they are inviting more and more into our country, who will need a roof over their heads.

Perhaps they should have passed the voluntary euthanasia law, then there would be less elderly using up NHS resources, so the NHS could then possibly accommodate all these addition number of foreigners?

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My wife and I live in a house that is deemed 'too big' for us.

I happen to think it is just the right size - my wife and I have bought it from the fruits of our labours, and we intend to enjoy it as long as we wish, and then we will sell when we are ready to downsize for practical reasons.

The responsibility of the housing crisis lies with government policy - and I will not be told by some bureaucrat who probably lives in a bigger house than I do, that I need to solve the housing crisis.

That is the job of his employers.
No, they're not.
They are suggesting that it might be helpful to consider the needs of an aging population and that constructing smaller purpose-built housing suitable for older people in areas where they would be better able to access services, etc. may free up some housing stock that could be bought by families.

Lynda Blackwell points out that the main focus, at the moment, is on helping younger people and families and considers whether similar assistance ought to be available to the 'other' end of the market.
I sorry, jack, but I don’t quite share your interpretation. I know it is a Daily Mail article but I imagine the quotes are fairly accurate. Among MS Blackwell’s ramblings:

“Ministers should look at ways to tackle the problem of retired people living in properties that are too big for them,…”

For whom is private home ownership a problem? Whoever it is they might just have to put up with it.

“…they may need to be steered towards moving to retirement housing.”

When it is suggested that social housing tenants are “steered” away from Central London properties to Birmingham or Northampton because of the costs involved in their supported housing there is absolute uproar. Accusations of ghettoization and social cleansing immediately surface. However, suggest that older people might be “steered” from the homes they own to elsewhere and that is perfectly sound.

“….Britain had a ‘real issue with the last-time buyer”

What? She means the people who have bought and paid for their house (whatever its size) and might just want to remain there in their retirement are “a big issue”.

“There’s older borrowers who basically pay off their mortgage and sit quite happily in a very big house.”

How DARE they!!!

CML chairman Moray McDonald said that, last year, just one per cent of the UK’s 5million homeowners over-65 moved house. That doesn’t really look terribly healthy,’ he said. ‘It literally means those homes are not released for families or indeed for redevelopment for the kinds of housing those older people would like to live in.'

It may have escaped his notice that most of the older people to whom he refers are already resident in the kinds of housing they would like to live in. That’s why they bought them and remain there. None that I know of are "stuck" in their houses. They live in them because they choose to and those that want to move do so. They do not need any facilitation or "encouragement".

‘It also massively blocks the passing of family capital to younger generations, which we know would enable more people to buy sooner. So it bears on younger borrowers massively.’

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

Successive governments have presided over massive increases in population fuelled by immigration and the benefits system failing to discourage higher birth rates. Now it is the older population’s fault. The Council of Mortgage Lenders should concentrate on providing mortgages. Social gerrymandering is not in their brief. The government can spend taxpayers' dosh building shoeboxes.
I think the population is in a transition state: where people used to die in their 70s, passing wealth down to the children and grandchildren, nowadays they are living into their 80s and 90s, consuming some of what wealth would have been passed down and also delaying it by 15-20 years, so the homebuyer generation lacks the buying power they might have had.

I think this effect will go away, eventually, as a new stable pattern is reached. The wealth of the elderly passing to the great-grandchildren, instead.

More to the point, the millions of unoccupied domestic and commercial properties should be the focus.
Here on the Sussex coast you will need to stump up more for a 1 bedroom bungalow than you will for a 3 bedroom semi. Many can't afford to downsize to a bungalow .. why not stay put in your 3 bed- semi ?
"!I think this effect will go away, eventually, as a new stable pattern is reached. The wealth of the elderly passing to the great-grandchildren, instead."

What wealth of the elderly?? It all goes on care fees, All my mum's savings and home have all gone in 2 years!
Neither empty well maintained properties nor older folk living in larger properties than they could squeeze into at a pinch, is any business of governments or other authorities. The governmental dregs who claim it is are unfit for their job and should leave the country to make room for the decent folk left. The only "property" issue presently is one caused by too many people due to overbreeding and immigration. And the desire for the dregs of society to look for temporary scapegoats because it's such fun to bully the decent citizens; presumably.
'They are telling our elderly to down size because of the house shortages'

No they are not. They (The Financial Conduct Authority.....No, I'd never heard of them either) are suggesting the measly incentive of being able to make one downsize without paying stamp duty.
@pippa1

"What wealth of the elderly?? It all goes on care fees, All my mum's savings and home have all gone in 2 years! "

I'm glad at least one person spotted my deliberate mistake.

Someone is, or several someones are, siphoning the wealth out of society as a whole and into the (privatised) care of the elderly sector and we wonder why the housing market is coughing and spluttering?



A house seller has to pay agent's fees, solicitor's fees, moving expenses and maybe the cost of disposing of surplus furniture. House sellers don't pay stamp duty, do they ? I thought it was the buyer. "Down sizing" implies that the new house will cost less than the old one, thus becoming a less valuable family asset. The profit left ( if any) after selling a bigger house and buying a smaller one, will have to be invested in savings which bring in zero interest. Any interest they do bring in is subject to income tax. A far better idea would be for the government to set up a free introduction bureau to introduce widows to widowers so they can marry again, look after each other, share car and gas bills, and rent out one of their houses to a younger family. I strongly suspect that the person who recommends lots of downsizing has him/herself got a parent with a nice big house which s/he covets.
>They are telling our elderly to down size because of the house shortages, and yet they are inviting more and more into our country,

I know that 'they' (the Financial Watchdog) has suggested we consider making more housing options available to older people. I was not aware that the Financial Watchdog is inviting more people into our country

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