Deciding Where to Live when You're Over 50 London
Every year numerous over 50s, couples and singles, consider moving house and many go on to do so without adequately thinking through the implications. Reasons include downsizing to a smaller property as children move out, relocating to another area, or starting to prepare for older age –but whatever the motivation any move at this time of life requires serious research and consideration, as this article explains.
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Deciding Where to Live when You're Over 50
These days moving house isn’t cheap. Stamp duty, sales and purchase fees, and removal costs, all mean that you end up paying very handsomely for the privilege, and that’s before you start to factor in the disruption and the emotional upheaval.
That said, most house moves, particularly for the over 50s, are a deliberate choice and are made to create some deliberate benefit which outweighs these costs.
The reasons for moving house when you’re over 50 are almost as many and varied as older people themselves. People may think about moving to a smaller property – either for less upkeep or to release some equity, they may want to locate to another area – moving to the country is a popular choice, or they may want to move to more age-friendly accommodation – anticipating eventual mobility loss or other aspects of ageing.
Some of course, move simply because they want a change, though there is usually an underlying type of change that they wish to make (from an old house to a new one, or to gain a larger or smaller garden, etc).
Evaluating the long-term consequences
The problem with moving house is that in some ways it is a comparatively easy decision to make, and it is very easy to be swept away by emotion, optimism and your own dreams of what you hope living in the new property will be like.
This being the case it’s important if you’re over 50 and think you may want to move house to be absolutely clear about why you want to move and what you want to achieve – well before you start looking. Failure to do so may lead to you making a very expensive and potentially disastrous mistake.
There is much to be considered but here are a few of the most important points:
• Clear objectives: what exactly do you hope to gain from moving house and why is it only something that a house move will achieve? If the answer is something like “a more relaxing lifestyle”. Perhaps you should think about ways in which you might make your current lifestyle more relaxing before you make the physical move.
• Emotional attachments: Friends, family, and neighbours are important to us all and often you may not realise just how much you will miss them until they’re not there any more. “Of course they can always visit” you say – but will they? And how well will it work having people to stay for days on end when perhaps you’re only used to seeing them for a few hours at a time? How much effort are you prepared to invest in making new friends and contacts?
• Shared aims: If you have a spouse or partner, it’s essential that you not only both equally wish to move but that you can both understand each other’s reasons for wanting to do so, even if you don’t share them. There’s nothing worse than the ongoing recrimination of one of you saying “Well you were the one who wanted to move…”.
• Acessibility: Wherever you’re thinking of moving to, you have to take a hard and realistic look at how well placed you will be to access shops, entertainment, doctors and dentists, clubs, libraries – or whatever other facilities you have been used to, and which are important to you. For example, there is a very fine balance between “quiet” and “conpletely isolated” if you move to the country, and an equally minute distinction between “buzzy” and “unbearably noisy” if you move to somewhere more populated. Make sure that you do your research and are prepared to live with the consequences.
Finally, don’t get old before your time. Some people move in their fifties or early sixties to a “retirement” home or village and find that they don’t like being surrounded by the majority of people who are in their eighties and nineties – a whole generation older!
Remember that today, over 50 is by no means old and you may well have another twenty or so years before you really have to take purely age-related considerations into account.
Click here to read more helpful advice for the over 50s
That said, most house moves, particularly for the over 50s, are a deliberate choice and are made to create some deliberate benefit which outweighs these costs.
The reasons for moving house when you’re over 50 are almost as many and varied as older people themselves. People may think about moving to a smaller property – either for less upkeep or to release some equity, they may want to locate to another area – moving to the country is a popular choice, or they may want to move to more age-friendly accommodation – anticipating eventual mobility loss or other aspects of ageing.
Some of course, move simply because they want a change, though there is usually an underlying type of change that they wish to make (from an old house to a new one, or to gain a larger or smaller garden, etc).
Evaluating the long-term consequences
The problem with moving house is that in some ways it is a comparatively easy decision to make, and it is very easy to be swept away by emotion, optimism and your own dreams of what you hope living in the new property will be like.
This being the case it’s important if you’re over 50 and think you may want to move house to be absolutely clear about why you want to move and what you want to achieve – well before you start looking. Failure to do so may lead to you making a very expensive and potentially disastrous mistake.
There is much to be considered but here are a few of the most important points:
• Clear objectives: what exactly do you hope to gain from moving house and why is it only something that a house move will achieve? If the answer is something like “a more relaxing lifestyle”. Perhaps you should think about ways in which you might make your current lifestyle more relaxing before you make the physical move.
• Emotional attachments: Friends, family, and neighbours are important to us all and often you may not realise just how much you will miss them until they’re not there any more. “Of course they can always visit” you say – but will they? And how well will it work having people to stay for days on end when perhaps you’re only used to seeing them for a few hours at a time? How much effort are you prepared to invest in making new friends and contacts?
• Shared aims: If you have a spouse or partner, it’s essential that you not only both equally wish to move but that you can both understand each other’s reasons for wanting to do so, even if you don’t share them. There’s nothing worse than the ongoing recrimination of one of you saying “Well you were the one who wanted to move…”.
• Acessibility: Wherever you’re thinking of moving to, you have to take a hard and realistic look at how well placed you will be to access shops, entertainment, doctors and dentists, clubs, libraries – or whatever other facilities you have been used to, and which are important to you. For example, there is a very fine balance between “quiet” and “conpletely isolated” if you move to the country, and an equally minute distinction between “buzzy” and “unbearably noisy” if you move to somewhere more populated. Make sure that you do your research and are prepared to live with the consequences.
Finally, don’t get old before your time. Some people move in their fifties or early sixties to a “retirement” home or village and find that they don’t like being surrounded by the majority of people who are in their eighties and nineties – a whole generation older!
Remember that today, over 50 is by no means old and you may well have another twenty or so years before you really have to take purely age-related considerations into account.
Click here to read more helpful advice for the over 50s