27-Oct 2005 Home ownership as a means to an end - lifestyle
NEW RESEARCH launched today at the National Housing Conference 2005 in Perth suggests ageing in place depends more upon attachment to location rather than the family home, according to Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) researchers Dr Diana Olsberg and Mark Winters.
In Australia’s largest national study of future housing intentions of older Australians aged 50 years and over, Dr Diana Olsberg from the AHURI UNSW-UWS Research Centre in Sydney, has confirmed that friendship enclaves offer new forms of community based upon commonality in lifestyle and consumption patterns. In contrast, living with their children is resoundingly rejected.
Homeowners are most likely to want to age-in-place, although for the majority (88%) their attachment was not necessarily to the home but to the local area.
“Location is important. Pleasure in and familiarity with the area and its facilities were important factors, as was proximity to people they know in the area”, said Dr Olsberg.
“The importance of friends nearby was a frequently cited reason for not wanting to move. This is not the traditional family-based neighbourhood community. Rather it is a set of emerging consumer classes, groups of people who find a commonality in lifestyle and consumption patterns”.
The research shows that this priority of lifestyle is no longer the domain of young singles with high disposable incomes. In short, the shift is from home ownership as an end in itself, to home ownership as a means to support lifestyle choices.
“We are observing a shift from home itself as the material and symbolic foundation of personal and family identity to the notion of home as location, a place which provides access to cultural sites where lifestyle can be enacted, witnessed and shared by others”, said Dr Olsberg.
More surprising, one in five respondents said they expected to use up all their assets before they die with a quarter of Baby Boomers saying this was the case. Eighty-six per cent said that owning a home means that one is free to make decisions about how one lives.
Dr Olsberg said some respondents were even candid about capitalizing on their assets, several referring to themselves as OWLS (Oldies Withdrawing Loot Sensibly).
The full report is available from the AHURI website (www.ahuri.edu.au ).
Website Design Melbourne Australia, Web Hosting, Web Development, by DDSN Interactive.