\u201cI\u2019ve lived all my life here \u2013 I was moving from one end of the street to the other, from the house I was born and reared in \u2013 to a small estate at the other end of street. Geographically we are talking about 250 yards,\u201d the pensioner says. He does not want to be identified due to a dispute about costs involved in the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was shocking. There was a chain of about five house purchases hanging on mine going through. It was all to be done in one day. My wife became ill; it had to be postponed and there was a collapse of the chain. Bridging finance<\/a> wasn\u2019t available \u2013 it was horrific stuff, for which there has to be an easier system.\u201d<\/p>\n It is certainly not unusual for a married couple in their 70s whose children have long since moved out to experience difficulty maintaining a larger home. But the process of first finding a smaller one for sale \u2013 and then organising the finance and timing around a move \u2013 can be fraught and stressful. <\/p>\n The term \u201cempty nester\u201dconjures images of well-off retirees knocking about in large suburban homes with empty bedrooms; meanwhile, young aspiring homeowners are priced out of the property market and paying extortionate rent for sub-par accommodation.<\/p>\n It is similar to the \u201cboomer\u201d narrative that has been part of the conversation around wealth and privilege in the US \u2013 the idea that the older generation of \u201cbaby boomers\u201d (people born between 1946 and 1964) took advantage of cheap house prices decades ago and are now lording it over younger generations.<\/p>\n The implication is that these so-called empty nesters should just move into smaller homes and leave the youngsters to get on with their lives. Understandably, it is a term that is resented by many.<\/p>\n Richie Carroll is co-founder of a \u201crent-to-own\u201d platform called Homely. It buys homes that clients ultimately wish to own outright \u2013 and rents those properties to them while the customer puts the purchase financing together.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see the homes coming up for sale and they haven\u2019t been renovated in 40 or 50 years,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople are entitled to live in those homes \u2013 you can\u2019t just say every old person should move out of their half-empty homes. They will feel attacked, and that is a totally fair reaction. It is about giving them the incentive and making it attractive to downsize.\u201d<\/p>\n Carroll says \u201cdownsizers\u201d have come to his company looking for a means of bridging the gap between selling their property and moving into a new one.<\/p>\n \u201cOne customer called up who had their mortgage paid off and they were living on two civil-servant pensions. They wanted to move from a home worth \u20ac600,000 to one half the price,” he says. \u201cBut they couldn\u2019t time the transaction and get the bridging finance for the three months needed to facilitate that.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent developments in the banking sector have changed the picture somewhat, Carroll says. Bank of Ireland is bringing out a new loan product in the new year for people seeking to downsize that will enable them to draw down finance on a smaller property before they sell the home they have been living in. With both properties serving as security, the bank says the sale of the first property will clear the borrowing and any accrued interest within 12 months. The interest rate attached will be 7 per cent variable. Other lenders may follow suit.<\/p>\n Making the move to a smaller property in retirement is not always motivated by the costs and efforts involved in maintaining a larger one. In a housing market with rising prices, many see it as an opportunity to help their families financially.<\/p>\n [\u00a0How property tax could be used to make empty nesters sell their big housesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely go for it,\u201d says retired Dublin accountant Dara Hogan. <\/p>\n He and his wife Mary made the jump into a smaller home back in 2021 and are delighted with how it has worked out. The two decided to make the switch so that they could release equity stored up in their home and pass it on to their children who were \u201cin the prime of their lives\u201d.<\/p>\n Selling the family home in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, for a smaller one close by, enabled the couple to pass on the benefit of the positive equity while also staying in the same area as their family.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key thing is the difference in the price you get for your current house \u2013 and the one you pay for the new one \u2013 it is about maximising that gap,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He notes that rising property prices since 2021 may well have changed the numbers involved to their detriment. As for the process they went through, he says: \u201cThe whole thing is ludicrous.\u201d <\/p>\n Again, finding finance to bridge the gap was a problem.<\/p>\n We can sell our house tomorrow but can\u2019t afford to buy a smaller house in town \u2013 the cost is higher. Everything we need is in Limerick, but we cannot afford it<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0‘Siobh\u00e1n’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI wrote personally to Colin Hunt [chief executive of AIB],\u201d says Hogan. \u201cI said myself and Mary had a combined century of loyal service to AIB along with spotless credit records, asking him to help us out just as AIB had bridged our previous house move when we took out our AIB mortgage in the 1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n Hogan said he received \u201ca short, negative reply\u201d from the bank.<\/p>\n Asked to comment on his exchange with AIB, a spokesman for the bank said it had \u201cnot seen significant demand for specific mortgage bridging products for customers who are trading down\u201d but it keeps products \u201cunder constant review\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere customers are involved in a closing process between two properties we work closely with them and their solicitor to ensure a streamlined drawdown process to enable such sales to close,\u201d said the spokesman. <\/b><\/p>\n Referring to the new product from Bank of Ireland, Hogan says \u201cit is about time\u201d that banks are beginning to offer bridging loans. <\/p>\n \u201cThe interest rate is a rip-off, but the duration is so short that people, I suppose, should be able to afford it. I think we would have used it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n People looking to downsize face different challenges in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cSiobh\u00e1n\u201d (not her real name), who is from Co Clare, and her husband are in their early 70s and struggling to \u201cright-size\u201d from their isolated, rural three-bed not far from Limerick city to a smaller urban property.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can sell our house tomorrow but can\u2019t afford to buy a smaller house in town \u2013 the cost is higher,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything we need is in Limerick, but we cannot afford it. We need the hospital \u2013 the doctor, the dentist \u2013 we worked in Limerick city all our lives and we need to maintain those contacts.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Richie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/QWNIZ7A6P5BSXB6D6ZUF4M3FMY.jpg\")
Richie Carroll, co-founder of ‘rent-to-own’ platform Homely <\/p>\n\n