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Downsizing

It might be the pool that has to go or perhaps the town house that requires too much DIY. Maybe the canal boat is a bit damp or the garden that’s good for parties is now hard work. But there comes a time in our lives when we all have to face the future and downsize

When Pamela Corke, 65, and her husband, Roy, 67, told an estate agent they were selling their bungalow to buy a narrowboat, he glanced at her, looked away, then did a double-take. The look said, “Hey, you’re over 60 and you want to sell your home to live on a boat? Are you out of your mind?”

However, Pamela and Roy are a new breed of home-buyer. You will find them in estate agents throughout the land, jostling with first-time buyers for the keys to studio flats, compact bungalows and tiny semis.

Recent research by Prudential suggests that many people in their fifties and sixties are starting to turn the housing market on its head, with some four million seeking to sell the “family home” and buy smaller homes to release funds for retirement.

Of course, selling a home after children have grown and gone is nothing new. However, on paper, retired people are richer than ever. This is the charmed generation that has benefited from rocketing property prices, good pensions and low debt.

The Council for Mortgage Lenders says homeowners aged 65 and over hold as much as £460 billion in unmortgaged equity, a level of wealth that is unlikely to be repeated. And now they are cashing in. What, you may ask, do these “downsizers” do with the money they release? They travel the world, have fun; they feel free again.

Roy and Pamela’s four children had left home, and once Roy had been persuaded to part with his many tools – he had four sheds of them at their Broadstairs bungalow, which in turn was smaller than their large house in Scotland – the couple spent two glorious years on the canals.

“It was just an incredible way of life,” says Pamela. “We just loved the camaraderie.” The adventure continues. Recently, encouraged by friends who moved to Croatia, the couple sold the narrowboat to buy a stone barn in Istra there, and they plan to set up a holiday business.

“I wish I could say these moves have encouraged me to hoard less,” says Pamela, who has a weakness for Christmas decorations. “We got rid of a garage full of them when we bought the boat, but then I saw three huge Father Christmases – beautiful things – plastic and marvellously garbed in all kinds of exotic materials. We bought them, but of course they’ve since had to go.”

Downsizing is a combination of both pleasure and pain. All the people I interviewed spoke of the trauma of leaving homes in which children were raised (especially with 35 years of clutter to shift), of the exhaustion of packing up, and shoehorning themselves into small spaces. But the main effect is clear. Downsizing means these couples, at any rate, are leading lives never dreamt of by their parents.

Written by Sally Williams

This article was created: 19 October 2006.
This article was last edited: 21 November 2006.

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