Homes with someone aged 63 to 65 are easy to find and reach. On their own, they are only slightly more likely to come onto the market than any other home. The real value
is in spotting where those changes are and narrowing down to the owners most likely to move.
We hold data on 31.7 million UK homes. Of those, 1,436,955 have at least one resident of pre-retirement age 63 to 65. That is 4.53% of the homes in our data, and each one is a specific address a house builder could reach by post, email or mobile advertising. Using patterns in the data, we can also flag homes that are likely to come to market in the next few months. The useful question is which of these homes is worth reaching.
Start with a sceptical test. If retirement were the strong reason to move, as it is often assumed to be, homes with someone aged 63 to 65 would be far more likely to come onto the market than those with everyone else. They are not. Across our data, 27.2% of these homes look likely to come onto the market soon, compared with 25.1% of all homes. That is about a tenth more likely. On its own, age is a weak basis for picking out an audience.
The national average hides the sharper signal. The difference is uneven, and in some areas it matters far more. The chart compares each area with itself, showing how likely all homes are to come onto the market versus homes with a resident aged 63 to 65.
In Glasgow, homes with a pre-retirement resident are a quarter more likely to be listed than homes there in general, 26.5% against 21.0%. Paisley, North London, Ilford and Edinburgh are close behind. These are the places where reaching people as they approach retirement genuinely changes who puts their home up for sale. Comparing each area with itself matters because some areas simply have more homes coming onto the market than others.
Figure 1. How likely all homes are to come onto the market (grey) against homes with 63–65 residents (purple), by area, ranked by the difference. Areas with 2,000 or more such homes.
The picture changes when you look at volume. The highest shares of pre-retirement homes are in Motherwell (5.72%), Sunderland (5.64%), Wolverhampton (5.55%), Romford (5.45%) and Falkirk (5.39%), mainly across post-industrial England, the West Midlands and central Scotland. Central London sits near the bottom, at around 2%. A high share means there are plenty of these homes. It does not mean they are ready to move.
Figure 2. Areas with the highest share of homes that have 63–65 residents. Dashed line: UK average (4.53%).
The areas with the highest readiness are different. Homes most likely to come onto the market are in Watford (38.1%), Harrogate (37.9%), Slough (37.9%), Kingston (36.6%) and Guildford (34.2%), mainly in the wealthier South and commuter belt. Llandrindod Wells is higher at 39.3%, but it is based on only 1,022 homes, so it should be treated separately.
Figure 3. Areas where homes with 63–65 residents are most likely to come onto the market, among areas with 2,000 or more such homes. Dashed line: UK average (27.2%).
Put the two together, and they seldom point to the same place. Sunderland has one of the highest shares of pre-retirement homes at 5.64%, but among the lowest chances of them moving at 20.4%. Harrogate and Watford have fewer such homes, around 4.4%, but close to 38% look likely to come onto the market. For a campaign, the biggest group of homes and the readiest-to-move group usually sit in different places.
Figure 4. How common pre-retirement homes are in an area compared to how likely they are to come onto the market. Dashed lines are UK averages.
Across whole regions, the difference is smaller because regions blend the extremes. The North East has the highest share of pre-retirement homes (5.14%) and one of the lowest chances of them moving (25.2%); the South East has a lower share (4.44%) and the highest chance (30.7%). The clearer signal is at the postcode-area level, which is where targeting is actually set.
|
Region |
Homes with a 63–65 resident |
% of all homes |
% likely to move |
|
North East |
66,954 |
5.14% |
25.2% |
|
West Midlands |
133,379 |
4.91% |
25.7% |
|
Outer London |
71,578 |
4.85% |
29.5% |
|
Scotland |
132,928 |
4.78% |
29.1% |
|
North West |
170,308 |
4.74% |
25.2% |
|
Wales |
72,236 |
4.74% |
30.2% |
|
East Midlands |
109,243 |
4.71% |
26.3% |
|
Yorkshire and The Humber |
123,939 |
4.67% |
26.0% |
|
East of England |
132,243 |
4.52% |
28.3% |
|
South East |
189,165 |
4.44% |
30.7% |
|
South West |
119,674 |
4.30% |
29.5% |
|
Inner London |
83,702 |
3.36% |
23.3% |
The result is a list of specific homes that a house builder can reach. Take Guildford: 14,944 homes have a resident aged 63 to 65, and 5,107 of them look likely to list soon. That is a clear, reachable audience, ready for a mailing, an email campaign or online adverts, run in-house or through an agency. It can be narrowed further using details we already hold, such as the estimated value of the home, the type of property and the household's income, to focus on owners who own their homes outright and have money to spend, the straightforward buyers for smaller and later-life homes. And because it is a named list rather than a figure buried in a wider campaign, a builder can see exactly what it delivered.
Work out the size of this audience in the area around a planned or active development before committing to smaller or later-life homes. Put more of the budget into the areas where approaching retirement really does make people more likely to move. And reach these owners while they are still at home, before an online enquiry tells every builder in the area the same thing at once. Age on its own is a weak signal, as the numbers show. Its value comes from the detail: which homes look ready to move, where that is strongest, and reaching them before they call an estate agent.
If you would like to see how many of these homes sit around your own current or planned developments, and how ready they look to move, we are happy to run the numbers for your area.