Crawley’s ‘Generation Trapped’ and the £6.57bn legacy

Last week, I wrote an article on the plight of the Crawley 20 something’s often referred to by the press as ‘Generation Rent’. Attitudes to renting have certainly changed over the last twenty years and as my analysis suggested, this change is likely to be permanent. In the article, whilst a minority of this Generation Rent feel trapped, the majority don’t – making renting a choice not a predicament. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) predicted that the private rental sector is likely to grow substantially by 1.8m households across the UK in the next 8 years, with demand for rental property unlikely to slow and newly formed households continuing to choose the rental market as opposed to buying.

However, my real concern for Crawley homeowners and Crawley landlords alike, as I discussed a couple of months ago, is our mature members of the population of Crawley. In that previous article, I stated that the current OAP’s (65+ yrs in age) in Crawley were sitting on £2.47bn of residential property ... however, I didn’t talk in depth about the ‘Baby Boomers’, the 50yr to 64yr old Crawley people and what their properties are worth – and more importantly, how the current state of affairs could be holding back those younger Generation Renters.

In Crawley, there are 7,552 households whose owners are aged between 50yrs and 64yrs and about to pay their mortgage off. That property is worth, in today’s prices, £2.40bn. There are an additional 5,305 mortgage free Crawley households, owned by 50yr to 64yr olds, worth £1.68bn in today’s prices, meaning...

Crawley Baby Boomers and Crawley OAP’s are sitting

on £6.57bn worth of Crawley Property

These Crawley Baby Boomers and OAP’s are sitting on 20,633 Crawley properties and many of them feel trapped in their homes, and hence I have dubbed them ‘Generation Trapped’.

Recently, the English Housing Survey stated 49% of these properties owned by the Generation Trapped, as I have dubbed them, are ‘under-occupied’ (under-occupied classed as having at least two bedrooms more than needed). These houses could be better utilised by younger families, but research carried out by the Prudential suggest in Britain it’s estimated that only one in ten older people downsize while in the USA for example one in five do so.

The growing numbers of older homeowners who want to downsize their home are often put off by the difficulties of moving. The charity United for all Ages, suggested recently many are put off by the lack of housing options, 19% by the hassle and cost of moving, 14% by having to declutter their possessions and 14% by family reasons such as staying close to children and grandchildren.

Helping mature Crawley (and the Country) homeowners to downsize at the right time will also enable younger Crawley people to find the homes they need – meaning every generation wins, both young and old. However, to ensure downsizing works, as a Country, we need more choices for these ‘last time buyers’.

Theresa May and Philip Hammond can do their part and consider stamp duty tax breaks for downsizers, our local Council in Crawley and the Planning Dept. should play their part, as should landlords and property investors to ensure Crawley’s ‘Generation Trapped’ can find suitable property locally, close to friends, family and facilities.