Legal & General and economics consultancy Cebr have quantified the size and shape of the UK’s ‘last time buyer’ market and in doing so has identified 5.3m under-occupied homes in the UK, with 3.3m last time buyers looking to downsize.

The research said the last time buyer market owns 7.7m spare bedrooms and a total of £820 billion of housing wealth, set to reach £1.2 trillion in 2020.

The ‘typical’ last time buyer lives in a four-bed house, but wants a two-bed property, the study found, while almost a third of older homeowners considered downsizing in the last five years; only 7% actually did.

58% put it off until after 70; a quarter until 80 or older.

Stephen Smith, director of Mortgage Club & Housing at Legal & General, said: “We currently have a housing crisis in the UK and there is a chronic shortage of appropriate properties to meet this huge demand. Government policy is focused on schemes to build more homes for first-time buyers and to help people get onto the property ladder. Initiatives like Help to Buy which encourage the building of more homes are always very welcome. However, at present, the last time buyer market is being hugely overlooked and as our figures show it could help to solve the UK housing crisis.

“We need to make it easier for older people to even consider moving by relieving the onerous burden of stamp duty, creating better options for equity release and providing real alternatives for older people in terms of the types of home that they can live in and the infrastructure that surrounds them. If we are able to get that right we will help older people in the UK move to homes which better fit their lifestyles and their needs and at the same time unlock large swathes of valuable housing stock for growing families.”