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Help to downsize? the Thinkhouse review of housing research: February
This month, Richard Hyde of Thinkhouse examines two reports looking at housing for older people
Thinkhouse is a new website set up to be a repository of housing research. Its editorial panel of economists, chief executives and academics critiques and collates the best of the most recent housing research (scroll down for more information).
It is a number of years since Aster Living published case studies into the capacity release benefits created by older people downsizing.
These studies demonstrated that for every person rehoused in more suitable accommodation, capacity for two-to-three people was released.
I like to call this ‘the downsizing multiplier effect’, and it is pretty logical that if you are downsizing from a large to smaller home a factor of at least two-to-three could be expected. But it does make you think that if we wanted to allocate our scarce resources to improving the supply of housing rather than boosting housing demand, perhaps funding for Help to Buy would be better spent on help to downsize/‘rightsize’?
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Two reports published this month take a look at housing for older people and come up with a number of interesting recommendations.
A paper by Jenny Pannell for the Housing Learning and Improvement Network (Housing LIN) focuses on the need to provide more market rent (private rented sector, PRS) housing for older people.
This subset of housing is usually overlooked in the debate regarding suitable housing for people in later life.
Housing LIN felt it needed to explore all aspects of choice, especially given the poor reputation that clings to parts of the PRS.
The report demonstrates that there is demand for later life and all-age PRS, especially for longer-term/assured tenancies, but that this often ‘crowded out’ by a focus on ownership or part share ownership.
The attractiveness of moving into a retirement property but without initial capital outlay, stamp duty, conveyance fees, etc – especially if it is brand new – is clearly going to resonate with many older people.
Given the demographics, will the PRS market catch up or is it going to need a nudge?
“The Housing LIN report demonstrates that there is demand for later life and all-age PRS…but this is often ‘crowded out’ by ownership.”
The second report is from the Communities and Local Government Committee.
Generally, I like select committee reports.
They pull in heavyweight witnesses, and the links to underlying evidence is always insightful.
On its way towards endorsing a new national strategy on housing provision for older people, this report lists 40 recommendations that the select committee felt are needed to improve all aspects of policy affecting housing for the demographic.
Interestingly, increasing the availability of the PRS is one of them, and the committee suggests that the Disabled Facilities Grant should be better used to help landlords adapt their homes.
One of the main recommendations is to fund a national service to provide telephone support, advice and signposting to such services as the Energy Saving Trust, which helps with home heating and adaptions to prevent falls, and advice on moving.
Finally, it recommends that the National Planning Policy Framework should offer greater encouragement for the development of housing for older people.
This is all sensible stuff, but I was left wondering whether it could have been bolder and picked up some of the creative ideas from KPMG’s report last year, ‘Reimagine Housing’.
KPMG looked at older movers who have high levels of equity, and suggested that tax and legislative incentives could be created to allow a four-way distribution between investing in a smaller home, paying care costs, providing an income and passing on a legacy – thereby motivating an earlier move.
“I think the select committee could have been more forceful on challenging the government to focus Help to Buy towards older movers who cannot afford specialist housing.”
This compares to the current position where older people may opt to continue to live in their large home, receiving free domestic care and delay selling up so that either their children benefit or end-of-life residential care can be funded.
What about those movers who do not have high levels of equity?
I think the select committee could have been more forceful on challenging the government to focus Help to Buy towards older movers who cannot afford specialist housing, and this all really matters.
The Office for National Statistics says that the proportion of the population aged 85 and above is projected to double over the next 25 years.
Housing LIN estimates that by 2035 there will a shortfall of 400,000 units of purpose-built housing for older people and 200,000 care beds.
So, while the Housing LIN and select committee reports are helpful in focusing policymakers on the problems linked to older people’s housing and suggesting some new policy tools, not least a national strategy, the scale of this challenge is significant.
But if the ‘Aster’ downsizing multiplier effect is correct, and we succeed in providing the support, incentives and capacity needed for older people to downsize/rightsize, we will be also making a significant improvement to the overall supply of housing.
I, along with all those other 1960s babies, who come 2035 could be slap-bang at the centre of this national challenge, certainly hope so.
Richard Hyde, chair of the editorial panel, Thinkhouse
What is Thinkhouse?
Thinkhouse was formally launched in spring 2018, and aims to “provide a single location and summary of the best and most innovative research pieces, policy publications and case studies”.
It specifically looks at reports that propose ways to boost the amount and quality of housing and the economic, social and community issues of not doing this.
The Thinkhouse editorial panel highlights the ‘must-read’ reports, blogs about them and runs the annual Early Career Researcher’s Prize.
The panel includes current and former housing association chief executives, academics, lawyers, economists and consultants. It is chaired by Richard Hyde, chief executive of a business that sells construction hand tools.
Who is on the panel?
Richard Hyde | Chair of Editorial Panel, CEO of HYDE |
Gemma Duggan | Head of Compliance and Performance at Extracare |
Chris Walker | Economist |
Brendan Sarsfield | CEO, Peabody |
Mick Laverty | CEO, Extracare Charitable Trust |
Martin Wheatley | Senior Fellow, Institute for Government, |
Kerri Farnsworth | Founder & MD, Kerri Farnsworth Associates |
Suzanne Benson | Head of Real Estate for the Manchester office of Trowers. |
Burcu Borysik | Policy Manager at Revolving Doors Agency, |
Ken Gibb | Professor in housing economics at the University of Glasgow, Director of CaCHE |
Peter Williams | Departmental Fellow, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge |
Brian Robson | Executive Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Northern Housing Consortium |
Francesca Albanese | Head of Research and Evaluation at Crisis |
Jules Birch | Journalist and blogger |
Susan Emmett | Head of Engagement for Homes England |
Mark Farmer | Founder and CEO Cast Consultancy |
Steve Moseley | Group Director of Governance, Strategy & Communications at L&Q |
Jennifer Rolison | Head of marketing at Aquila Services Group |
Philip Brown | Professor of Housing and Communities at the University of Huddersfield |
Anya Martin | Senior researcher at the National Housing Federation |
Emily Pumford | Policy & strategy advisor, Riverside |
Anthony Breach | Analyst, Centre for Cities |
Shahina Begum | Customer Insight Office, Peabody |
Where were the research gaps in 2017?
What should have been covered in 2017 but was not? Here is what the Thinkhouse editorial panel members think:
- Gemma Duggan: Have the reports in 2017 recognised that the (degree of) shift by the government towards again accepting social housing as an important part of policy, which started after the referendum and change of PM in 2016, was energised further following the Grenfell Tower catastrophe? What scope is there, at this late stage, to promote relevant research for the Social Housing Green Paper due in early 2018?
- Suzanne Benson: Research into the direct experiences of social housing tenants and those renting from private landlords seemed to be well covered in academic circles, but did not seem to hit the mainstream media. How can the homeownership and rental tenures (both social, affordable and private rented sector) be more effectively linked together to recognise that individuals do not have static housing needs? More thinking on the linkages between the tenures that work in the market and how they can be used more dynamically to benefit people as they move through different life stages and income brackets would help with both monitoring the demand side of the housing question and planning a more targeted supply.
- Kerri Farnsworth: It would have been helpful to have had more on the cost of housing and the impact on living standards. This area of study seems to have become fallow since John Hill’s comprehensive report 10 years ago. In particular providing robust cost-benefit analyses evidence and monetisation of the linkages between housing and health would have been useful. From a macro perspective, what about the linkages between housing, agglomeration and economic growth?
- Boris Worrall: Given the amount of public land and the failure to release significant chunks of it without the public sector scrapping to get ‘best value’, it would have been interesting to have some further research, which builds on recent pieces from Civitas, on how this has held back housing.
- Martin Wheatley: As the government starts, post-Grenfell, to look again at estate regeneration, perhaps it is time to widen the debate beyond just bricks and mortar to looking at the benefits of regeneration in a wider social, physical and economic context that is not restricted/can cross local authority boundaries. This may also be pertinent in helping shed light on some of the current battles between residents and councils battling over radical estate demolition/rebuild.
- Chris Walker: Are there some devolution lessons that can be applied nationally? For instance the Scottish rent pressure zones?
- Mick Laverty: Does the fragmented housing association sector create a structural deadweight that limits the actual number of houses it can build?
- Beth Watts: Finally, although such lists are never really final, are we promoting new and young researchers to take a new/diverse viewpoint? Should Thinkhouse offer a cash prize for the best piece of housing research/analysis completed by someone under 30?
