Housing supply fix hiding in retirement policy, expert says

Here’s a thought. What if one of the quickest ways to get more family homes back onto the market was to stop penalising older Australians for leaving them?Australia talks endlessly about housing supply. Yet government policy actively discourages older people from moving into homes that better suit their needs.Retirement Living Council modelling shows simple changes to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) could help more older Australians move into retirement communities and free up family homes for younger buyers.Daniel Gannon — Executive Director, Retirement Living Council Photo Jeremy Piper /New RomansNo rezonings. No new subdivisions. No decade-long planning fight. Just fix the rules.Rent assistance is where the problem becomes absurd.A pensioner entering a retirement village can lose access to CRA if they pay more than $267,000 to move in, which captures 97% of these homes. That threshold doesn’t reflect today’s housing market. It’s a policy fossil.Worse, similar seniors’ housing options are treated differently. That isn’t smart policy, it’s a penalty for unlocking housing supply.And when government makes it harder for older Australians to rightsize, the consequences don’t stop a...