February 2010

Fiscally and Physically Fit

The phenomenal rise in property values over the past 25 years has benefited one group of homeowners more than any other — the asset-rich, time-rich fiftysomethings who are coming up for retirement. Those in their sixties and early seventies may also find themselves in a strong position, equity-wise at least.

In many ways, they are the have-it-all generation: fiscally and physically fit, they are generally mortgage-free, often own a second home in Britain or abroad, and are healthy enough to make the most of it. They’re the ones with all the equity.

A typical professional on the verge of retiring is worth nearly £1m, according to a recent government report, and the over-65s are the country’s fastest-growing demographic group.

At the prime end, according to data from Savills estate agency, based on its own sales, the advantage of age is clear. “Downsizers typically account for about 25% of sellers in the prime markets, and make up an increasing proportion in the high-value bands,” says Lucian Cook, the company’s director of residential research. “For properties worth £1m or more, that figure is 36%.”

So far, so wealthy. Yet new research paints a far less rosy picture of a generation who considered their house as their pension, but, having remortgaged and re-remortgaged, are facing a less than comfortable retirement. In the face of longer life expectancy, medical bills and cash-strapped relatives to help onto the property ladder, the need to plan for the future is increasingly acute. So what are they going to do with all that property wealth, and how might their decisions affect the rest of the housing market?

The happy-go-lucky ones sell up and go SKI-ing (Spending the Kids’ Inheritance). They’re as likely to be on a “grey gap year”, trekking in the Himalayas, as joining the local bowls club, and will be dividing their time between a lock-up-and-leave flat and a home on the Mediterranean.

“Retirees no longer regard themselves as old,” says Liam Bailey, head of residential research at Knight Frank estate agency. “People aged 60 or more are living longer, healthier and more active lives, which will have a dramatic impact on their housing requirements.”

Research carried out by Bailey shows that the image of retirees packing their slippers and heading for a bungalow on the coast or a rural backwater is increasingly out of date. “Older people will represent half of all household growth to 2026, and it’s important that the development and construction industries recognise this,” he says. “The successful developers will be those that master the trick of creating homes to meet older people’s needs without pigeonholing them because of their age.”

One striking trend, Bailey points out, is that the “grey” hot spots for the coming decade are rural, but concentrated near urban areas where the children and grandchildren live, such as Buckinghamshire, North Yorkshire, Suffolk and Northamptonshire. Rutland is another surprising grey spot, in the centre of the country, rural, but near the provincial cities of Leicester and Peterborough.

Another movement, which is helping both the demand for family homes and the developers, is for retirees to move back into town.

Swapping the upkeep and high heating bills of a large house and garden for a smart, two-bedroom flat in an attractive town centre, with shops, restaurants and cultural life nearby, has growing appeal, particularly for early retirees. Some then choose to use any spare equity to help fund their offspring’s first-time buys, further kickstarting the market.

This downsizing trend has its problems, however. “Older couples looking to move to smaller two-bedroom homes are competing with younger and first-time buyers,” says Kate Faulkner, an independent property consultant (designsonproperty.co.uk). “They may find that downsizing won’t leave them with as much equity as they hoped.” There is also the expense of moving — stamp duty, estate agents’ fees and other supplementary costs.

Last year, a report commissioned by the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government called for a “national effort to build the homes that will meet our needs and aspirations as we grow older”. That includes properties aimed at retirees, from 55-plus developments in town centres to retirement villages with everything on tap.

The village idea, widespread in America, but relatively new in Britain, is designed to attract younger retirees with smart modern homes in landscaped grounds, offering restaurants, sport and cultural amenities. Care options and medical help are on tap if needed later.

Just how much older people want to live with a lot of other old people is debatable, but one advantage of these, and smaller residential developments, often in converted country houses, is that they can work for age-gap couples where one is fit and active, but the other isn’t. They allow such couples to continue living together without one becoming a full-time carer in the future.

The economic importance of older homeowners has been thrown into sharp relief by the recession. The shortage of family housing has not been improved by those in underoccupied properties who are reluctant to sell, meaning that there are fewer big homes in circulation.
 
Whatever options these baby-boomers choose, they are better off than those who are coming up to retirement in the next decade, and who believed their bricks and mortar would provide for the future no matter what the circumstances.

These are the SKI-ers hurtling down the Cresta Run to retirement, which is coming up too fast for them to regain the equity they’ve merrily spent on their comfortable lifestyles, overseas holidays and floor-to-ceiling glass extensions. After remortgaging and re-remortgaging, they now owe more than they ever did, and often have a dodgy-looking pension to boot. This group will have fewer choices than the first wave of baby-boomers, and many will still have mortgages when they retire.

“In Britain, we have got used to the idea that the older generation own their properties outright,” Bailey says. “What will happen soon is that some retirees will have to downsize sooner rather than later. There is an upside to this, though: the number of family-size homes coming into circulation should increase.”

However hard done by they may feel, those upcoming retirees will still have benefited from the property booms. And if they have to forgo the villa in Tuscany, there’s always that little bungalow by the seaside...

Shelf Esteem

In the era of the iPad and Kindle, technophiles may be cheerfully contemplating living in a bookless world.

Designers, however, are whipping up a bibliophile backlash, celebrating a new the way printed books bring colour and texture to our interiors.

Rainbow ranks of Penguin paperbacks are used to highlight the contours of smart white storage; handsome hardbacks are positioned in frame-shaped shelving or face out as artworks on picture ledges. And wall stickers of backrests, coupled with stacks of favourite volumes, create a brand-new spin on the library chair.

It wasn’t until I picked up the gorgeously illustrated Books Do Furnish a Room (Merrell £24.95) in which Leslie Geddes-Brown, whose own tally has reached 10,000 tomes, explores every possible way to display, from curly shelves to plain piles — that I realised books have morphed from being “stuff to store” into a decorating opportunity.

This transformation is thanks, in part, to the cool storage that has been designed in the past few years, and is really coming into its own this season. There are geometric shapes, such as Contraforma’s Quad, rectangular and square open shelves, all set on the diagonal (H1200cm x W120cm x D30cm, £1,127; 0131 557 4800, moletamunro.com). Roderick Vos’s Nureyev, for Linteloo, is chic white storage, reminiscent of a bookshop carousel (H190cm x W105cm, £5,170; 020 8421 1779, www.chaplins.co.uk), but the star among geometrically shaped shelving is Jean-François Bellemère’s Mikado for Edition Compagnie, a powder-coated steel wall sculpture that just happens to support books (H100cm x W185cm, £475; 020 7734 9970, www.lifestylebazaar.com).

For those with fewer books who still want to pack a weighty punch, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s Cloud, for Cappellini, is a mass of colourful circular cells in which books recline like 1960s starlets in bubble chairs (H105cm x W187cm x D40cm, £692; 0114 243 3000, www.nest.co.uk).

Some of the most stylish modular shelving systems are designed to marshall books into repeat patterns, weaving a display of spines like a colourful textile across the wall. Ligne Roset’s Book & Look, composed of staggered cubicles finished in white lacquer, coaxes your library into a chequered pattern (from £762; 0870 777 7202, www.ligne-roset.co.uk).

Random, by MDF Italia, has compartments of varying heights and levels in tall columns, for a more, well, random look (H212cm x W81.6cm x D25cm, £1,607; 020 7278 8456, www.viaduct.co.uk). And the Ledge, a wall-mounted MDF system by Kazuhiro Yamanaka for Pallucco, adds dynamism and depth to the mix, with angled shelves that produce a play of light and shadow (H210cm x W112cm x D39cm, £1,613; 0114 243 3000, www.nest.co.uk).

“I think cupboards and shelves should be a backdrop to books, not the main event,” says Tim Newbold, of Domus Furniture (commissions from £1,500; 0800 093 1043, www.domusfurniture.co.uk). His designs include wall-wide white storage with pillar-box apertures where owners can add colourful bands of classic Penguins or prop up a collection of art books. Newbold’s latest display idea is a quartet of slim white ledges clinging to the walls of a stairwell, each loaded with a towering column of magazines.

Though there are similar products in the shops — the Umbra Conceal can take a stack of half a dozen books (£12; 0870 024 0780, heals.co.uk) and the Ikea Ribba picture ledge claims to support 10kg (£9.99; www.ikea.com).

What if we want to showcase our books, like the works of art they are? Flat C, designed by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia, features shelves and pigeonholes in several sizes that can be customised around the highlights of a collection, embracing everything from magazines to oversized picture books, vases and small sculptures (from £2,500 per linear metre; 020 7591 8111, www.london.bebitalia.com).

Taking the concept of book as art a step further, Seletti has launched a set of four shelves in a elaborately moulded white picture frame (H54cm x W67cm x D15cm, £120; 0870 024 0780, www.heals.co.uk). Graham & Green’s Baroque bookshelves are flat black metallic frames with ornate edges, each of which encloses a bookshelf (small, H32cm x W32cm, £45; large, H32cm x W67cm, £78; 0845 130 6622, www.grahamandgreen.co.uk).

The low-tech book displays are favourites — inviting stacks on low tables or tempting piles on the floor. Top tables for display, combining a stylish silhouette with the simplicity needed in a good backdrop, include the Barber Osgerby Loop, a curvy oak coffee table manufactured by Cappellini and Isokon Plus (H29cm x W135cm x D60cm, £1,290; 020 8994 7032, www.isokonplus.com), and Kay + Stemmer’s plain oak Foxtrot coffee table, with splayed legs that give it a pleasing 1950s vibe (H43cm x W120cm x D60cm, from £597; 020 7739 1869, www.scp.co.uk).

For a quirky display on a budget, Florian Kremb has created a vinyl wall sticker that transforms a dog-eared pile into a practical furnishing. It’s in the form of the backrest and back legs of a chair. Simply add a pile of books at the appropriate height, et voilà — a reading seat (H78cm x W36cm, £30.65; 020 7729 3800, www.hiddenartshop.com). 

Property Crash!

A homeowner who splashed out £150,000 on a clifftop house suffered a property crash just days later, when the bottom of the garden collapsed in a massive rock fall.

The large six-bedroom property was sold for the bargain price because of its precarious position overlooking Oddicombe Beach in Torquay, Devon.

It was bought for £150,000 last week, but just six days later more than 5,000 tonnes of rock at the bottom of the garden collapsed into the beach below.

A huge chunk of the Devon homeowner's garden collapsed in the rock fall just six days after the property was purchased for £150,000

Local residents said they heard a 'rumbling' noise before the unstable sandstone cliffs crumbled narrowly missing a row of beach huts.

Police and coastguards feared joggers or dog walkers were trapped underneath the rock and used thermal imaging equipment to hunt for survivors.

Luckily no-one was hurt but Ridgemont House lost a 'substantial' chunk of its land and now sits just 50ft from the edge of the 300ft cliff.

One neighbour said: 'Apparently the cliff collapse was sparked when a large boulder the size of a Transit Van fell off and the whole lot went.'

The home was deserted by its last owners who feared it was unsafe and sold at auction for £150,000 just a fraction of the £1.5million for a similar sized beach front home in other British resorts.

The official brochure for the sale said: 'A rare and interesting property comprising a substantial six-bedroomed detached two-storey house set in extensive cliff top gardens and grounds with glorious views.'

A Torbay Council spokesman said the beach below has now been closed for fear of further rock falls.

Alternative Energy Blooms

Bloom Energy officially unveiled its much-hyped Bloom Energy Server at a press conference today at eBay's headquarters. The 100KW fuel cell is designed to be used off-grid and to cut carbon emissions.

The launch was attended by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and retired US general Colin Powell, along with representatives from many of the companies which have already purchased units, including eBay, Google, Coca-Cola, FedEx and Staples.

 "When Bloom came to us, it was an easy decision to become an early adopter of its cutting-edge new technology," said John Donahoe, chief executive of eBay.

"As a result, we are meeting financial and environmental goals, while fuelling a more energy efficient global marketplace. That's good for us, our customers and the planet."

The solid oxide fuel cell consists of 4in x 4in wafers of baked sand coated with an ink that forms into an anode and cathode. A cheap metal alloy acts as an ion conductor, replacing the platinum used in similar products.

The device was developed originally at Nasa for use in Martian exploration, but was adapted for use as a fuel cell after the Mars project was cancelled.

Dr K R Sridhar, the inventor of the Bloom Energy Server, has received $400m (£262m) in start-up funding, and is selling the units for $700,000 to $800,000 (£458,000 to £523,000).

The company estimates that mass manufacturing would bring the price down to around $3,000 (£1,960) for a unit that would power an average home.

The company claims that carbon emissions can be cut by between 40 and 100 per cent depending on whether the devices are fuelled by hydrocarbons or renewable energy. EBay powers its systems on biogas from landfills.

Bloom Energy's first customer was Google, which has been using a 400KW unit for 18 months. The search giant said that, aside from some early teething problems with clogged air filters, it has seen significant cost savings.

"As we work hard to reduce Google's environmental footprint and improve our sustainability, we are pleased to be able to use on-site clean power generated by Bloom Energy," said Rick Needham, manager of Google's green business operations.

https://www.bloomenergy.com/products/solid-oxide-fuel-cell-animation/ 

Home Ownership Drop

Love Thy Neighbour

These properties are some of the most remote in the world. Wouldn't we all like to have some peace and quiet some times?

 Streetwise Maps

Streetwise are just putting the finishing touches to their new look website which will be launched next month.

New look, new products, but still the cheapest prices.

www.streetwise-maps.com

QUICK CONTENTS

Fiscally and Physically Fit

The phenomenal rise in property values over the past 25 years has benefited one group of homeowners more than any other — the asset-rich, time-rich fiftysomethings who are coming up for retirement.

Shelf Esteem

In the era of the iPad and Kindle, technophiles may be cheerfully contemplating living in a bookless world. Designers, however, are whipping up a bibliophile backlash, celebrating a new the way printed books bring colour and texture to our interiors.

More

Property Crash!

A homeowner who splashed out £150,000 on a clifftop house suffered a property crash just days later, when the bottom of the garden collapsed in a massive rock fall.

Alternative Energy Blooms

Bloom Energy officially unveiled its much-hyped Bloom Energy Server at a press conference today at eBay's headquarters. The 100KW fuel cell is designed to be used off-grid and to cut carbon emissions.

Home Ownership Drop

The new English housing survey published by the Department of Communities and Local Government shows a sharp change in the trends in homeownership and renting in recent years, compared to those exhibited in the second half of the 20th century.  
More

Love Thy Neighbour

These properties are some of the most remote in the world. Wouldn't we all like to have some peace and quiet some times?

Streetwise Maps

Streetwise are just putting the finishing touches to their new look website which will be launched next month.
More