Retirement Complex

I must be getting old: today I received an unsolicited mail shot from McCarthy and Stone, encouraging me to consider moving to their new retirement development on the edge of town.  That really isn't the sort of thing you want to get on a Monday morning.  I mean, I know that, technically, I'm semi-retired as, right now, I'm enjoying an extended break from working and even when I was last working, it was only part-time, plus I'm due to see a couple of work pensions start paying out in a couple of years time.  But I'm still quite some way off actual retirement age and getting my state pension.  But you don't actually have to be at retirement age to move into one of these retirement complexes - I'm eligible to buy a flat in the block my mother moved into a few years ago, for instance.  I think this reflects the era a lot of these places were put up in, the nineties and noughties, before the financial crash, when a significant number of people had good enough work pensions and private pensions that they could retire in their fifties, or earlier.  But I don't think that I'll be moving into one of these places any time soon.  Especially not one of the McCarthy and Stone built and run ones.  Apart from their new build prices being high, they are notoriously difficult to sell on due to the high service costs and ground rents.

To be fair, as far as I know, all of the big chains of retirement flat complexes share these features, not just McCarthy and stone.  The flat my mun bought is part of an older, independent complex.  Service charges and ground rents are about a third of those in the big chains.  Moreover, while more expensive, those flats in the big chain complexes are actually far smaller.  I know because, a few years ago, McCarthy and Stone put up one of their retirement complexes on my street, so I got a good look at them as they went up and see them daily.  Not only is my mother's living room about twice the size of theirs, but hers is also a two bedroom apartment, whereas most of those on my street seem to be single bedroomed, yet cost significantly more than my mum's.  (To be absolutely clear, her flat is in Salisbury, where property prices are generally lower than in Crapchester, but the comparison still holds if you look at the prices being asked local to her for similar retirement flats in the chain complexes).  Besides, if I do decide to move house, it wouldn't be to anywhere in, or close to, Crapchester.  I'm more minded to move back to my hometown, Salisbury.  I'd get more for my money there if I were to sell this house.  But, right now, I have no intention of moving into any kind of retirement flat, McCarthy and Stone or otherwise.  So their brochure went straight in the bin.