Retirees happy to be tenants rather than owners

Renting may be the only option for struggling millennials, but for many retirees it is becoming the housing of choice.

In Sidcup, Kent, rentals at Birchgrove, a scheme of 74 homes opening next month, with a restaurant, library, wellbeing centre and gardens, includes gas and electricity (birchgrove.life).

Birchgrove’s managing director Honor Barratt believes the increase in high-end developers building homes to rent is due to a slowdown in the property market, which has seen prospective buyers unable to sell their homes.

‘Many big retirement housebuilders are seeing completions fall to new lows,’ she says. ‘Renting in retirement can buck this trend.’

Also, older people don’t want the hassle of buying in later life.

Georgina Bevis, 74, who is moving with her husband Mike, 78, into Birchgrove, says: ‘I’m perfectly fit, but my husband has Parkinson’s disease. My son offered to look into assisted living that you can buy, but we didn’t want to buy again and have to sign all the papers at our age.’