Housing Wealth and Retirement Savings: Enhancing Financial Security for Older Americans

William Apgar, Zhu Xiao Di

W05-8: The rapid rise in home prices in countries around the world has focused new attention on the role that housing and housing wealth plays in enhancing the financial security for families and individuals as they move into their retirement years. This is especially true in the United States where after a decade of steady increases in home values, residential real estate has grown to become the largest single asset class held by households with heads aged 65 or older. With so much wealth tied up owner occupied housing, little wonder that the popular press in the United States provides extensive coverage of the ‘housing bubble’ and what will happen should that bubble suddenly burst…