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Sue Owen's avatar

It would re helpful if they changed the 10year time you have to have lived in your house before using the downsizer contribution.

People over 60 can have sudden health issues that require a quick decision to change your housing.

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Andrew Donachie's avatar

Hi Great Podcast.

A couple of areas to think about if you do downsize is the impact on the age pension.

Especially if you are in receipt of it

Recapping:

If you are in receipt of the age pension and you downsize you may increase your assessable assets that Centrelink assess - this may impact the amount of age pension you receive.

For example a single retiree on the Full aged pension (approx 30K pa) with less $314K assessable assets receives the full age pension. Should they downsize and free up 200K, their assessable assets are now 514K - their age pension entitlement may fall by $15,900, so they now only receive $14,100 pa. By waiting another few years to do the down-size (and drawing down on assessable assets) you may be able to keep assets below $314K once have completed downsize and still be entitled to the full age pension

Alternatively, if you need to down-size due to needing more income - you could consider the Government pension loan scheme as an alternative to down-size.

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/home-equity-access-scheme

Cheers

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