Plans to free up 25 million unused bedrooms

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

shortchanged wrote: »

This said by the person who says young families should just get on with it and have 2 adults and 3 kids in a 2 bedroom house and stop whinging if thats all they can afford.

We did this three girls in a two bed house because that was what we could afford at the time,never hurt any of us.
We did'nt moan about it either,it gave us something to aspire to for when we could later afford to buy bigger.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

Going4TheDream wrote: »

My road is full of elderly people The houses hardly ever come on the market, usually only when someone passes away which suggests to me that the elderly can easily afford to live there and maintain them. Why would they want to move and more importantly why should they, and who would be able to afford them as they dont come cheap?

Exactly they don't need to move do they.
Like me these people won't care about house prices either as they won't be buying or selling.
They'll either stay there till they die or go into care.
Shrouds don't have pockets do they,so why would they care what value their house would bring.
To me my house has no monetary value its my home,and thats the attitude of most older people.

alexlyne

I could try to kick my parents out of their house (our old family home), but as I probably can't get a mortgage at 10x income, I wouldn't be able to move in my pregnant wife and my son (y'know, proper family n all).
Apart from that, great plan

Really2

If you move all the old people in to other houses, how many houses have we freed up?

I make it something like non.

We don't have a shortage of bedrooms, it's a shortage of houses.

Moving one to another does not make more houses.

System

Really2 wrote: »

We don't have a shortage of bedrooms, it's a shortage of houses.

And the right kind of houses, in the right places.

Big expensive houses in the country don't solve inner city overcrowding, nor provide affordable housing for workers in newly-developing industrial areas.

It would make more sense to do the exact opposite - encourage people to move up into bigger, more expensive houses so as to free up smaller cheaper ones.

Graham_Devon

You simply cannot get around the fact that the older people are, the more likely they are to have surfed the tide of a massive HPI boom, even over the last decade was enough to make some very well off if they played the game (even unknowingly) correct. The younger are simply left with the small pickings. Money does that.

The argument that subsidised tenants should downgrade is a valid one, IMO, it's just a very tough one to debate as whichever way you go, if you are on the side of freeing up accomodation, you are also on the side of "chucking out the elderly" so it's anone starter.

You can't do anything about owner occupiers though. If they want to start, start with second homes, instead of threatening it and doing nothing all the time. As for Grant Shapps, no point even listening to him, he'll just say whatever needs to be said for that particular media item. Doesn't matter if he said something completely different an hour ago. Just a puppet boy.

The other point about these houses, is because of the people that live in them, the schools have now shut down. the local ammeities shut down. The shops have gone due to lack of trade and so on. They are no good for families....not now they have been wiped out and all the ammenities have gone with them.

PasturesNew

There's a shortage of sheltered housing for old people to move to. Waiting list where I am seems to be years, if you have your own home you're automatically at the back of the list. And there's no privately rented sheltered that exists.

Really2

PasturesNew wrote: »

There's a shortage of sheltered housing for old people to move to. Waiting list where I am seems to be years, if you have your own home you're automatically at the back of the list. And there's no privately rented sheltered that exists.

Any type of older person housing is short supply, Bungalow tends to take up more planning space than a house even non sheltered have massive waiting lists. But they are rarely built due to them taking up more room or the same room as houses.

crazyguy

Solution,

IveSeenTheLight

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

I have four spare bedrooms and two spare living rooms downstairs that never get used however we like the space which is why we moved here.
We were in our late 50s when we actually moved INTO never mind out of a bigger property.
We wanted more space to enable us to pursue hobbies when we retire
If a family had wanted my house its strange that people with families did'nt even view it.
The only people interested were developers who wanted to turn this beautiful house into flats but that was probably because of the cost.
Which brings me to the fact that if people can't afford a larger property why should they get one.
Strangely we lived in a smaller house when we had children because we could'nt afford to buy larger.
Surely this is the way things are,you buy what you can afford not what you think people should be selling for just because you have too many kids and can't afford to live.
If thats the case don't have the kids till you can afford to house them.
I don't know any of my friends who would move into a smaller property (and some have much larger houses than me) and why should they.

Excellent post.

I highlighted one sentence which I thought was pertanent and shows an instance where generations of the past got on with things whilst there are instances today where people expect things to be within their affordability.

I just can't believe people don't realise how much better their life is in relation to previous generations or indeed poorer countries.

It makes me think that there are a section of society that is just plainly spoilt.

The last 30 years has been the anomoly from historical norm in which more people were able to become home owners and this has raised the expectation levels of some.