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To stay put or to downsize – that is the question

May 17, 2012 By

When people reach a certain age, it’s not unusual for conversations to turn towards the idea of selling up the family home and downsizing. Often, when children have left home and set up homes of their own, there is the feeling of having too much space and the house becomes more expensive to run – as it’s only housing two people now.

Downsizing has its appeals – you can buy a place with fewer rooms and reduce all your utility bills. You have less house to keep clean and tidy, so you can spend more time pursuing hobbies and interests.

However, there are downsides to downsizing too. For a start, if you haven’t got them already, there will probably be some grandchildren on the horizon at some point, and even if not, you’ll still have your children and their partners coming to stay every now and then, as well as other friends and family. If you downsize, you may not have enough room to accommodate everyone comfortably.

It’s a balance of course, and some people relish the idea of having a change and moving somewhere new. However, if you don’t fall into that camp and you want to stay put, there’s another solution. You can use the equity in your home to finance some of your retirement by signing up to an equity release plan

Equity release is when you free up some or all of the value of your home. There are different types of equity release at Age Partnership, and these are the same main categories you will find throughout the equity release market.

The basic idea behind equity release is that you take out a lifetime mortgage on your home that is payable after your death. You can choose to pay interest instalments while you are still living, or leave them to accrue to be paid off when your property is sold after you die. There is also the option of home reversion – where you sign over your property completely to release a lump sum of cash, but have the right to remain living in your home rent-free until you die, or no longer wish to live there.

You can find good value equity release at Age Partnership as it is an independent company that searches the full range of plan providers to find the best equity release deal for each individual case. If you’re thinking about downsizing for financial reasons, it’s worth doing some research to see if an equity release plan might suit you better.

Filed Under: Moving Advice

Furnishing A New Flat

April 24, 2012 By

Often, when you get your foot on the first rung of the property ladder, finances can be pretty tight. You may be full of enthusiasm to decorate and furnish your new home, but your bank manager might not be able to share that enthusiasm!

It’s a good idea to make sure you have the basics in order to live comfortably, rather than going out spending on everything at once, and racking up a big credit card debt.

For starters, all you need is a bed, a table and chairs to eat at, and a sofa.  Everything else – like wardrobes, chests of drawers, coffee tables and bedside units – can wait. If you’re really strapped for cash, then you could consider buying a sofa bed and using that to double up for both bed and sofa until you are able to spend more.

You can also ask around friends and family and see if anyone has furniture that they no longer want or need. It may not be to your taste, but if it’s serviceable and will get you through a few months, then why not?

Of course, many furniture stores also offer flexible finance plans. For instance, you can get an interest free sofa and pay the amount over a one or two year period. In this way, a ‘big ticket item’ like a sofa becomes affordable as the monthly payments will be small and manageable.  This is a great way to get the items of furniture you really like without having to wait a long time to save up for them. So if you’ve been hankering after a pair of really nice recliner chairs, look into it and see what payment plans the store offers.

As long as you can realistically afford the repayments, there’s no harm in buying furniture this way, but do make sure you don’t overstretch your monthly budget!

Filed Under: Moving Advice Tagged With: , , ,

Getting ready to move

January 25, 2012 By

Moving house is probably one of the most stressful processes to organise in our adult life. If you are moving abroad the process will start about three months before when you decide on a date and contact container shipping companies about shipping your goods. Deciding how much to take is a problem but many people who are moving abroad say, for a temporary contract, will choose to take the minimum of goods with them it they are going to furnished accommodation and then look to put some of the rest into storage. However, moving house whether just down the road or across the seas, is an opportunity to thin down your accumulated possessions. In fact it is often much easier when you are moving to get rid of things that you obviously don’t have a use for. Broken bikes, old toys, old sets of drawers are not going to move with you, so the sooner you begin to take untreasures to the tip the sooner you can get on with sorting your stuff to take with you. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Moving Advice Tagged With: , ,