Attitudes have changed

A generation ago most of us thought of retirement in terms of selling off our family home and moving into a small flat or bungalow, or even moving into a retirement complex.

Sixty is today's forty.

A silly sound-bite perhaps, but it has an element of truth within it. We, today's retirement generation, are fitter and often much better off than our fathers were when they retired.

We're much better travelled and look beyond the UK. We are happy to sell the family home or use Equity Release so that we can invest in a retirement home abroad.

We can buy a small property abroad and become ‘residential tourists’ travelling without much luggage and spending our winters in the sun and using what remains of our equity to buy a small summer home in the UK.

Look after your health

Eventually, of course, our health will fail so it may be better to keep your UK property as your main residence leaving you with the overseas house to be sold or rented out.

Think about what will happen if you need to return to the UK. Don't allow yourself to get stranded alone in a foreign country.