The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Fife OAPS own £8bn worth of property
Fife pensioners own property worth a combined £8 billion, it has been revealed. Of the 160,952 homes in the region, 43,099 households are 65 years or older and 70.4% of those households (30,375) are owned, mostly without a mortgage.
One property expert believes the issue is in part due to lack of suitable properties to allow older people to downsize.
Jim Parker, of Fife Properties, said: “I talk with many Fife pensioners who want to move yet are unable to.
“There appears to be a shortage of suitable properties in Fife for members of the older generation to downsize into.
“Due to their high demand and low supply, Fife bungalows and suitable ground floor apartments achieve on average a 15% to 25% premium per square foot over two/three storey properties.
“Yet would it surprise you only 1% of new builds in the UK are single storey bungalows, compared to 7% 25 years ago?”
One of the few dedicated bungalow building projects in Fife is earmarked for St Monans, where Lochar Homes is building 46 single-storey homes.
The premium property prices attached to bungalows mean pensioners are remaining in larger family properties, rather than downsize.
The total value of properties owned by pensioners in Fife is now reckoned to be £8,027,019,000, a figure based on the average Fife property price multiplied by the number of homes owned by pensioners.
Meanwhile, the value of property owned by the older generation across the UK is set to smash through the £8 trillion barrier, up from £3tn at the start of the Millennium.
Jim added that government initiatives looked at helping the younger generation get on the housing ladder, rather than helping free housing stock by building more bungalows.
Only last week Chancellor Rishi Sunak used his Budget to announce 95% mortgages as well as an extension to the Stamp Duty holiday for buyers in England and Wales.
However, Scotland’s Finance Secretary Kate Forbes has rejected calls to follow suit with Scotland’s equivalent, the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT).
Mr Parker said: “Yougov did a survey a couple of years ago and they found that just over one third of home-owning pensioners in the UK were looking to downsize into a smaller property.
“As I have stated before, as a nation, we need to rethink how we can encourage older homeowners to sell their larger homes to release them to the younger families that desperately need them.
“Over the last 11 years the government have appeared to target all their attention on first-time buyers with a strategy such as the Help to Buy Scheme.
“However, this doesn’t address the longestablished under-supply of appropriate retirement housing vital to the needs of Fife’s quickly ageing population.
“Unfortunately, Fife’s housing stock is sadly illequipped for this demographic shift to ageing homeowners.
“Also, to add insult to injury, those more mature Fife pensioners in their 80s and 90s who do live in the restricted number of Fife bungalows and suitable ground floor apartments are finding it difficult to live on their own, as they are unable to leave their bungalow/apartment because of a shortage of sheltered housing and ‘inexpensive’ care home places.
“This in turn means the younger 60 to 70 year old Fife retirees (in their bigger two/three storey family houses) can’t buy those Fife bungalows (occupied by the older retirees), which means those Fife families in their 30s and 40s can’t buy those larger family houses (occupied by the younger 60 to 70 year old retirees) they need for their growing families.”
Mr Parker added:“shrewd Fife property investors should consider purchasing bungalows, especially ones needing titivating.
“Bungalows purchased at the right price and location are a great gamble for flipping.
“They should also be considered for renting out as demand will only outstrip supply.
“This would be a start to the solution of rebalancing the Fife property market so everyone is happier with their lot.”