Online House Hunter: Taking the house down a size | Alan Cleaver | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

Online House Hunter: Taking the house down a size | Alan Cleaver | Independent Editor's choice Blogs

DOWNSIZING keeps bubbling to the top of my email Inbox. I suspect it’s seen by some in the property market as another way to kick-start the long wished-for revival. Just think: all those pensioners who put their homes on the market and buy smaller homes instead. Darby and Joan could be the replacement for the missing first-time buyers.

It is also at the forefront of my mind because the in-laws keep talking about it. They are in their late 70s and live on a housing estate in Cumbria. They like the idea of money being freed up (the coach trips and cream teas have to be paid for somehow) but the immediate concern is more practical. Like many living on housing estates, they’ve seen public transport vanish before their very eyes. Five or six years ago a bus would pass the end of their street four or five times a day. Now they have to walk to the edge of the estate and hope the bus isn’t already full to capacity. And with no bus shelters, it’s no fun in winter weather.