Demographic Change and Retirement Planning: Comparing Households’ Views on the Role of Housing Equity in Germany and the UK

Anwen Jones, Tim Geilenkeuser, Ilse Helbrecht and Deborah Quilgars

International Journal of Housing Policy, 2012, vol. 12, issue 1, 27-45

Abstract: As states across Europe come under pressure to meet the needs of ageing populations, there has been increasing interest in the potential role of housing equity in funding welfare provision. This paper draws on the findings of a European study, Demographic Change and Housing Wealth (DEMHOW), which set out to explore whether housing plays a role in retirement planning. This paper compares the views of homeowners in Germany and the UK. The former is a country where homeownership is the minority tenure and the preserve of affluent households, and where house prices have been stagnant for years. The latter is a country of homeownership where half the poor are home owners, and where real house price increases over many decades have served to establish the belief that homeownership is one of the best investments accessible to ordinary people. In addition, ‘equity release’ is more common, and related products better developed, in the UK than in Germany. Given these differences, it might be assumed UK homeowners would be more willing to consider utilising housing equity to supplement their income in retirement than their German counterparts. This paper sets out to explore whether this is the case.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14616718.2012.651299 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:intjhp:v:12:y:2012:i:1:p:27-45

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REUJ20

DOI: 10.1080/14616718.2012.651299

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Housing Policy is currently edited by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Gerard van Bortel and Richard Ronald

More articles in International Journal of Housing Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().