Retirement

Why more retirees are still paying off mortgages

Big numbers of Australian Baby Boomers are now entering retirement with a mortgage. The proportion of homeowners who still have a mortgage at the point of retirement in 2016 surged 23 per cent in a decade to 36 per cent. Generation X are also heading towards retirement with mortgage debt. This article examines the reasons behind this phenomenon.
2020

Older and poorer: Retirement Income Review can’t ignore the changing role of home

The assumption that retired people have minimal housing costs underpins the settings of our retirement incomes system. But the real state of housing for older Australians today makes it critical for the Retirement Incomes Review to look at the evidence that now challenges this assumption.
2020

What Are the Structural Barriers to Planning for Later Life? A Scoping Review of the Literature

This review draws on Street and Desai (2011) to characterise planning as the range of activities people deliberately pursue with the aim of achieving desired outcomes in later life.
2019

Mortgage debt causing older Australians distress and worsening mental health

The burden of mortgage debt is leading to mental distress and worsening mental health outcomes for older Australians, who are now often carrying unsustainable mortgage repayments into retirement,
2019

Fall in ageing Australians’ home-ownership rates looms as seismic shock for housing policy

Outright home ownership has long been regarded as a supporting pillar of Australian retirement incomes policies. Increasingly, concerns that rising mortgage debt and falling home ownership rates in later life are undermining the role of home ownership in supporting retirees’ financial wellbeing.
2019

The Next Gen of Renters: Mom and Dad

This article presents findings from a US in-depth research study on renter demographics and found that, as the 60+ cohort grew bigger and faster, it also helped push the national median age from 36.7 in 2007 to 38.1 in 2017—the highest it’s ever been.
2019

Housing in an ageing Australia: Nest and nest egg?

This brief is in three parts. Part one tackles the dynamics of the housing purchase in working life, describing the patterns of housing tenure across generations, demographic and market dynamics, the likely future effects of demography on housing demand, and the policies that can affect home purchase outcomes, particularly taxes.
2019

We’re delaying major life events, and our retirement income system hasn’t caught up

An article looking at the need to conduct an independent review of Australia’s retirement income system, in view of the fact that old age Australian renters have some of the worst relative poverty rates in the OECD.
2019

Older Aussie renters at ‘greater risk of financial stress’ than home owners

According to new research, older Australians are one of the fastest-growing groups of renters in Australia with an increasing number of retirees forking out for rented properties. Australia's retirement incomes system doesn’t work for everyone. Retirees in the private rental market are at much greater risk of financial stress than homeowners, or those in public housing.
2018

Will you be renting in retirement?

The concept of retirees as mortgage-free homeowners is a problem for our current welfare system. Thanks to poor housing affordability, people who do own property are generally buying later in life and paying off their mortgage for longer.
2018
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