Family home may help fund retirement

The family home may hold the overlooked value for many for funding their retirement savings, an option strengthened by constant tinkering and growing complexity of superannuation, according to Homesafe MD.

The provider of retirement solutions noted that continuous fiddling with legislation around superannuation fuelled a lack of confidence in the system and drove Australians to seek other alternatives despite the federal government's objectives to strongly encourage people to fund their own retirement through industry, retail, corporate, and self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) structures.

Homesafe Solutions managing director, Peter Szabo, said this would result in Australians turning to the family home as an option "seeing it as a better, simpler and relatively more secure alternative".

As such, the overlooked value stored in the family home, an equity that can be accessed to supplement the underfunded superannuats and low income retirees, was expected to gain more significance.

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"Continuing socio and economic uncertainty is the new norm for today's working Australians that these factors will impact on their ability to contribute sufficiently to superannuation," he said.

"Add in constant government tinkering with the superannuation system and owning a family home can prove to be a much needed asset lifesaver for ongoing financial wellbeing when it is time to face an underfunded retirement."