Brixton OAP’s are sitting on £581.3m of equity

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41.1% of Brixton OAP’s own their own home … and they are worth £581.3m

Yes, that number is staggering isn’t it ….

Of the 2,708 households in Brixton where the head of the household is 65 years or older, an astounding 1,113 (or 41.1%) of those are owned, which is far below the national average of 74.1%, which sounds great – yet nothing could be further from the truth.

I chat with many Brixton pensioners who would like to move but cannot, as there is a scarcity of such properties for Brixton mature people to downsize into. Due to their scarcity and high demand, Brixton bungalows on average get a 12% to 22% premium per square metre premium 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).

Brixton OAP’s are sitting on £581.3m of equity in these Brixton 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 stratagems such as Starter Homes to safeguard the youngsters of the UK 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 the Brixton’s hastily ageing population. Lamentably, the Brixton’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 Brixton retirees’ who do live in the limited number of Brixton 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.

Meaning those older Brixton retirees can’t leave their Brixton bungalows, younger Brixton retirees in their larger 2 storey family houses can’t buy those Brixton bungalows (occupied by the older retirees) and those Brixton people in the 30’s and 40’s can’t buy those larger 2 storey family houses (occupied by the younger retirees) they need to for their growing families … it’s like everyone is waiting for everyone because of the bottleneck at the top.

For those wanting to see the complete stats for Brixton as whole …

 


Matylda Nowak
AUTHOR OF BRIXTON PROPERTY BLOG, CEO, Kings Accommodation

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