The Lifecycle of Home Ownership
December 24th, 2023
There is, of course, no real standard home ownership journey, and what that lifecycle looks like, but here I’ll describe what I often see.
What tends to happen is that first time buyers will enter the market by buying a 1 or 2 bedroom flat or apartment, and, occasionally, a small starter home, depending on the area they’re in.
Typically, they will stay here for between 2 and 5 years and then move on to the next property which may be a 2 or 3 bedroom house. The stay here will typically be 5-7 years and by this time, the owner will have probably got married and had children, or be planning a family.
What we then see are one of two things – either the owner(s) will stay put for a few more years whilst the children are small, and then move to their ‘forever home’ or they will move before the children arrive.
Either way, the next move is normally the big one, where they’ll really stretch themselves to get to their ‘forever home’. That forever home is the one they’ll stay in for the next 25-30 years, until they start to think about retirement. At that point, they’ll normally downsize to something smaller to help pay the mortgage off a few years early and to help with their general retirement funds.
Although the above is your standard ‘journey’ and lifecycle of homeownership, of course, it’s never quite as simple as that. Divorce, debt, death, redundancy, promotions, and the economy, can all play a part in whether your property ownership lifecycle happens in the ‘normal’ way.
Over the years, we have seen a trend for people who are perhaps a few years into their ‘forever home’, then go off and buy one or more properties to rent out.
We’ve also seen a steady rise in the number of people at the end of their ‘forever home’ journey who decide not to downsize and instead release equity which helps them to fund their lifestyles and also allows them to give some of the money to the children, ironically, to help them on the housing ladder!
Whatever direction your journey is taking, you need a good property consultant to help you throughout that lifecycle.
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