New white paper: The Growing Debt Burden of Retiring Australians

Homesafe Solutions has supported the publication of a major new white paper — The Growing Debt Burden of Retiring Australians: Challenges, Solutions and Opportunities — authored by retirement finance experts Harry Chemay and Sahil Kaura of Credere Consulting Services.

Older Australians are retiring with unprecedented levels of housing debt, forcing superannuation to do double duty: funding retirement and clearing housing loans. The white paper reframes retirement planning through a household balance sheet lens and sets out practical ways super funds, advisers and policymakers can integrate home equity release alongside super and the Age Pension to improve outcomes — without forcing people to sell their homes in retirement.

Why this matters

Unpaid housing debt at the time of retirement is now common: for median home-owning near-retirees, the odds of still carrying housing debt into retirement are roughly 50–50.

The stock of outstanding home loans is now near the size of APRA-regulated super assets, straining the traditional "pay off the home, live on super" model.

Many retirees are using lump sums to extinguish housing debt, reducing the super actually left to produce retirement income.

Integrating home equity release into advice and tools can lift replacement rates. In the paper's case study, clearing housing debt via equity release rather than super increased monthly discretionary income by around 70% while keeping super invested.

Who should read it

The white paper is written for superannuation trustees and product leaders, policy makers and regulators, financial advisers and retirement specialists, and journalists covering housing, retirement income and ageing policy.

For over two decades, Homesafe has helped older Australians unlock home equity without taking on debt, supporting fair, transparent, debt-free access to housing wealth.