Shockingly however only 3% of proposed new-builds are designed to meet their needs according to Knight Frank’s latest Retirement Housing report.

Older people already account for nearly 30% of housing overall, and the study forecasts that by 2037, more than three-quarters of households will be headed by someone aged 65 or over.
A quarter of over-55s said that they intended to move into some sort of retirement housing in the future, while 29% of them intended to buy a house.

According to the report, retirement housing would need to increase five-fold to meet their needs.

Knight Frank’s head of institutional consultancy Emma Cleugh said: “Since 2014, the government has implemented repeated reforms to other sections of the housing market, however, the retirement housing sector remains overlooked.”

With greater choice in retirement housing, a greater number of people would be able to downsize to more suitable accommodation, said the report, approximating that if people downsized by one bedroom, it would release around £52,000 equity on average across England and Wales.

The wider housing market would benefit from this and pressure on social care budgets would lessen, suggested Cleugh, quoting research showing how people living in bespoke retirement housing often enjoyed longer, healthier, more fulfilled lives.