Retirement villages: Shocking waitlist figures exposed in new data

Older Australians are languishing on waiting lists for suitable retirement accommodation, with new data revealing almost 30,000 are being held up in making their final move. The Retirement Living Council has warned the pipeline of new accommodation for the aged has hit a brick wall, as the recently released 2025 PwC-RLC Retirement Census shows 26,825 Australians are currently on waitlists. Of these, 7826 are located in New South Wales, with 1297 of these in metro Sydney, with the other 6529 in regional New South Wales. In Victoria, 863 sit on waiting lists – 582 from metro Melbourne and the other 281 from regional Victoria. South Australia accounted for 17.8 per cent (4775) of these, with 4036 in metro Adelaide, and the remaining 739 in regional SA. Almost 2500 (2432) Queenslanders are waiting for a spot – with 1064 of them in metro Brisbane and the other 1368 in regional QLD. In Western Australia, that number jumps to 4464, Tasmania has just 135 older Australians on waitlists, while ACT has a whopping 6430 people waiting to move into suitable retirement living. According to the report’s forecast, the number of residents aged over 75 by 2040 is set to surge by 64 per cent, with tha...