Print Email Facebook Twitter Mortgage equity withdrawal in Australia: Recent trends, institutional settings and perspectives Title Mortgage equity withdrawal in Australia: Recent trends, institutional settings and perspectives Author Haffner, M.E.A. Ong, R. Wood, G.A. Faculty Architecture and The Built Environment Department OTB - Research for the Built Environment Date 2015-06-29 Abstract Australian tax preferences and asset test concessions have traditionally favoured wealth accumulation in the primary home, with added impetus lent by a decade-long period of sustained house price appreciation prior to the Global Financial Crisis. The primary home is increasingly viewed by governments worldwide as a key store of wealth that can perform a welfare role in retirement in an era of population ageing. We assess whether the institutional environment in Australia encourages mortgage equity withdrawal drawing on a selective international survey focusing on mortgage equity withdrawal mechanisms in six developed countries. We find that Australia’s institutional settings offer a relatively favourable environment for mortgage equity withdrawal that has encouraged Australian homeowners to tap into their housing equity at earlier stages of the life course. To the extent that mortgage equity withdrawal is exercised over the life course (and not just post-retirement), more Australians will approach retirement carrying outstanding mortgage debt burdens. The implications of these findings for the effectiveness of retirement income systems and the role of housing wealth as an asset base for welfare in old age are discussed. Subject asset-based welfaremortgage equity withdrawalhomeownersinstitutional settingsowner-occupiersreverse mortgages To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b5726aef-2486-4649-badc-0f0d9ef78e99 Embargo date 2015-06-30 Source OTB Working papers 2015-02 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type report Rights (c) 2015 Haffner, M.E.A.Ong, R.Wood, G.A. Files PDF OTB_Working_papers_2015-0 ... tralia.pdf 898.79 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:b5726aef-2486-4649-badc-0f0d9ef78e99/datastream/OBJ/view