Of the 5219 households in Loughborough where the head of
the household is 65 years or older, an astounding 3863 - that's 74% - of those are
owned, which is equal to the national average of 74.1%. It sounds great yet nothing could be further from the truth.
I chat with many Loughborough pensioners who would like to
move but cannot as there is a lack of such properties for Loughborough mature
people to downsize into. Due to their scarcity and high demand, Loughborough
bungalows on average get a 12 - 22% premium per square metre over
two storey properties. To add insult to
injury, a recent NHBC reported that only 1% of new builds in the Country were single
storey bungalows - compared to 7% in the mid 1990’s.
Loughborough OAP’s are sitting on £952.2m of equity in these
Loughborough homes!
In a survey conducted a couple of years ago by YouGov, they established
that just over one third of homeowning people aged 65 and over in the country
were looking to downsize into a smaller home. Yet, the Tory’s over the last
nine years have appeared to target all their attention on first-time buyers
with strategies such as Starter Homes to safeguard the youngsters of the UK in not
becoming perpetual members of ‘Generation Rent’. Equally
though, this doesn’t address the long lasting under-supply of suitable
retirement housing essential to the needs of Loughborough’s hastily ageing
population. Lamentably, the Loughborough’s
housing stock is tragically unprepared for this demographic shift to the 'overextended
middle age’, and this has created a new 'Generation Confined’ quandary where
older people cannot move.
Also, those older Loughborough retirees’ who do live in the
limited number of Loughborough bungalows are finding it difficult to live on
their own, as they are unable to leave their bungalow because of a lack of
sheltered housing and affordable care home places.
This means that those older Loughborough retirees can't leave their Loughborough
bungalows, younger Loughborough retirees in their larger 2 storey family houses
can't buy those Loughborough bungalows (occupied by the older retirees) and those
Loughborough people in the 30’s and 40’s can't buy those larger 2 storey family
houses (occupied by the younger retirees) they need for their growing
families. It's like everyone is waiting for everyone else because of the
bottleneck at the top.
For those wanting to see the complete stats for Loughborough
as whole:
|
Loughborough
OAP’s by Tenure of their Home
|
||||
|
Owned
|
Shared Ownership
|
Council
Housing
|
Private
Rented
|
Living Rent
Free
|
|
74.0%
|
0.6%
|
20.9%
|
2.7%
|
1.8%
|
Loughborough, and the rest of the UK’s, property prices
have soared over the last 50 years because the number of properties built has
not kept up with demand. With restrictive
planning regulations, migration, people living longer and excessive divorce
rates - meaning one family becomes two - we need, as a country, 240,000
properties to be built each year since the Millennium to just stand still.
At the turn of the Millennium, the country was constructing
on average 180,000 to 190,000 households a year. That figure dropped in the
five years after the Credit Crunch to 135,000 and 145,000 households a year. Although we built 217,000 last year, we still
have all those 19 years to make up for.
The answer? Allow more land for starter homes, bungalows
and sheltered accommodation because land prices are stifling the property
market as the large building firms are more likely to focus on traditional
houses and apartments than bungalows - basically because they make more money from them.
My thoughts for the savvy Loughborough property investors – until the Government change the planning
rules and allow more land to be built on – bungalows, especially ones that need
some TLC after someone has passed away, are a great bet for flipping
and even have potential rental returns for future property investment as more and
more OAP’s will be renting in the decades to come.
If you would like to discuss the Loughborough property market or chat about any potential investment please feel free to call us on 01509 260777 or email me at j.lee@belvoir.co.uk
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