Rental Housing for an Ageing Population

In our latest Inquiry, we have turned our attention to rental housing for older people, both now and in the decades to come. We wanted to find out how many homes for rent are likely to be needed over the next 20 years or so, what they should be like and who might provide them. Today only 22% of those over 65 are tenants (private or social). But this will change. Owner-occupation has been falling and there has been huge growth in the private rented sector – a doubling of numbers since 2000. As this new “Generation Rent” gets older and the chances of buying a home diminish, the number of retired people in the Private Rental System seems set to change dramatically.