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Do you know of any elderly folk (80+) who do not live in a care home?
It may be different due to the higher lev… It seems that most of the rest of the country's elderly need to eventually go to care homes, and I was wondering whether there was a similar trend in London?
It may be different due to the higher levels of ethnic minorities here, but I may be wrong.
my great aunt is 83 and lives alone in a council flat in southwark, she refuses to even consider a care home. the key thing in london is that there's way more warden-controlled flats and supported living options compared to retirement villages, so people can stay independent longer with just a bit of help. also the nhs community teams here are pretty good at doing home visits for elderly people so they don't get forced into homes for medical reasons as quickly
yeah my nan's 86 and still in her own flat in brixton. she's got a cleaner once a week and meals on wheels but that's it. honestly a lot of the older caribbean ladies in her building are similar, they just don't do care homes unless they really have to. think it's partly cultural but also the housing stock here means more purpose-built sheltered housing vs full nursing homes. my mate's gran in hackney's 92 and still gardening, just gets a bit of help from family
fwiw my neighbour's 85 and still in her peckham maisonette, she's got a live-in carer from the philippines who shares the rent basically. seen a lot of that arrangement round here, cheaper than a home and they get company too. the council's home adaptation grants are a lifesaver too, she got a walk-in shower and grab rails done for free last year
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What are some innovative ways to anonymously compare rental prices in a city?
SpareRoom's "rooms wanted" ads are underrated for this. people post what they're currently paying alongside what they want next, so you can scrape a rough sense of going rates by postcode without anyone knowing you looked. it skews young and flatshare heavy tho, so not much use if you're after 2-beds in zone 2.
Another one is just the depozit or tenancy deposit scheme data. not public-facing, but your council's housing officer can tell you median rents from deposit registrations if you email them under FOI. takes weeks, but its proper anon and nobody clocks u.
Rightmove and Zoopla only show asking rents, which are often 10 to 15 percent above what a place actually goes for, so they're a poor benchmark. The trick I've used is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which breaks things down to borough level and is genuinely anonymous since it's aggregate data, no listing or account needed. For something more granular, the London Renters Union runs a rent reporting tool where you submit what you're paying with your postcode and it maps it against others nearby, though the coverage is patchy outside the inner boroughs.
the openrent "rent check" thing is decent for zones 3-4 where the unions tool barely reaches. also worth checking the london.gov.uk planning portal for new build applications, they list "affordable" and market rent figures per unit in the viability assessments, which is basically the developer telling the council what they expect to charge. bit of a faff to dig through but its public, anonymous & nobody knows ur looking