Retirement housing

Housing developments of a similar type to sheltered housing (see Glossary entry), but built for sale, usually on a leasehold basis in England, freehold in Scotland. Referred to in our Accommodation Directory as ‘housing with support’.

It has become customary to specify ‘private’ where applicable because for many years – until the 1980s – almost all housing built specially for older people was built to rent, by local councils and housing associations (registered social landlords). In effect, ‘private’ was coined to distinguish retirement housing built for owner-occupation from what was regarded as ‘social housing’.

Confusingly, there is now a growing private rental market in retirement housing! In the main, a private retirement housing rental means an individual property available for renting in an otherwise owner-occupied development. There are however a small number of developments built commercially solely for letting.

Find private retirement housing developments, including details of thousands of properties currently on the market, through the Accommodation Search on this website.

Find current private and other rental vacancies in our Directory of Properties to Rent.