According to research from retirement housing specialist Audley Villages, which collated responses from 2,000 adults and 886 people over 55, around 60 per cent planned to downsize expected to gain from moving to a smaller home.
Within that, 43 per cent planned to use the money to support their lifestyle, 41 per cent would use to fund holidays and 39 per cent would use the finances gained to make home improvements.
Around a fifth, 22 per cent, said they would use the money to help their loved ones.
Regarding motivation, 60 per cent of over 55s want to live in a property suitable to their changing needs, 49 per cent want to cut the amount of maintenance needed for their property and 44 per cent want to cut on costs.
Over a quarter, 26 per cent, said they wanted to move to a better location and 21 per cent wanted to release money to meet the cost of everyday living.
A fifth, 22 per cent, said the greatest incentive for downsizers would be help finding the perfect property, as opposed to 20 per cent who were in favour for a stamp duty exemption.
Around 20 per cent said a financial incentive, such as a £1,000 one-off gift, for downsizing would be welcome.
Nick Sanderson, CEO of Audley Group, said: “The reasons why people choose to downsize are vast and often varied. Having access to care, removing the burden of looking after a large family home or releasing money to spend on their own lifestyles or support loved ones are all things that we hear regularly.
“Regardless of the motivations the message from the research is clear. The single greatest incentive to support downsizing is giving people more support to find the perfect property. And to do this there has to be more choice, in more locations.”
He added: “This needs to happen quickly because the pressures of our ageing population are not abating. By 2030, the number of over 65s in the UK is projected to total over 15m, which is 2.4m more than today. This means the construction of housing with care properties needs to accelerate, and do so quickly.
“At the start of the year the government announced the creation of the Housing with Care taskforce with the aim of improving the number of housing options for people as they get older. This is the first step on the journey to delivering more options to people, but we can’t afford for any feet to be dragged on the way. Change has to start now.”
