I’ve seen it all too often in recent years. A retiree sitting across from me, looking to downsize, was energised at the prospect of a more relaxed lifestyle, only to deflate when we start talking about what’s available to them in the place they want to live. They want to sell their four-bedroom family home in the suburb they’ve loved for thirty years or more. They want something smaller, more manageable, and ideally still in the same postcode so they can stay close to their doctor, their church, their friends, and their favourite café.
But that product, such as a quality townhouse or well-built apartment in their local area, is either non-existent or priced so high that the numbers barely stack up.
This is a problem hiding in plain sight, and I think it’s going to become one of the defining housing stories of the next decade as our population continues to age.
I’ve coined a term for it… Suburb Succession.
Unless we get serious about it, a generation of older Australians will be stuck in homes that no longer suit them, unable to hand the baton to the younger families desperately waiting to move in.
Suburb succession is the natural and necessary cycle of retirees and downsizers freeing up their large family homes for the next generation, being the young families, upgraders and first-home buyers who want to move into established, well-located suburbs with great schools, infrastructure and community.
It’s been happening quietly in the background of property markets for generations. What’s changed is the sheer scale of demand building on both sides and the glaring lack of suitable housing stock to make it happen smoothly.
ABS data shows Australians aged 65 and over made up 17 per cent of the population as at June 2024, with projections that share will climb to between 25 and 27 per cent by 2071. These are people who, in many cases, own their family homes outright or with minimal remaining debt. They’re asset-rich and ready to simplify, but they don’t want to leave the suburb they love, and they shouldn’t have to.
On the other side is younger buyers. These are first-timers, families and upgraders who are desperate for the established, character-filled homes that retirees currently occupy. They want those streets, those schools, that community. But those homes won’t come to market in meaningful numbers unless the succession happens, and that is going to require some concerted political and societal effort.
Australia is not building enough of the right housing in the right places. The government's ambitious goal of building 1.2 million new homes under the National Housing Accord by FY2029 is projected to be missed by approximately 426,000 homes. At the current trajectory, it’s likely only about 738,000 homes will be delivered, achieving just over 60 per cent of the national target.
But the type of housing matters enormously here, too. Much of the attached housing being built now are high-rise apartments, and not all of them necessarily cater to the needs of retirees.
Many of these buyers want something with a bit of a garden. Ground floor or lift access. A lock-up garage. A sense of community. Single-level living with good bones.
In short, many want townhouses and boutique low-rise apartments, and the current market consistently fails to deliver enough of these in many well-established suburbs.
There has been some movement on zoning laws, but it’s only just beginning.
In NSW, the Transport-Oriented Development (TOD) programme is rezoning land around key train stations to enable medium-density housing. Suburbs are opening up to townhouses and low-rise apartments in ways that simply weren’t possible five years ago. Queensland and Victoria are pushing similar reforms around activity centres and transit corridors.
All of this is necessary, but it’s only just the beginning.
Then come council approvals, developer feasibility assessments, construction timelines and the cost blowouts that make marginal projects unviable. Build costs remain elevated, and the gap between the cost to construct a townhouse and what buyers can pay remains a barrier to many projects.
A 2025 Council on the Ageing report found that one in four Australians aged over 50 is living in poverty. Many own their homes but are struggling with rising living costs. They’re asset-rich and cash-flow poor, sitting on significant equity in a home that is too big and too expensive to maintain but unable to downsize because the right product doesn’t exist nearby.
Stamp duty makes it worse. A retiree selling a $2 million Sydney home and buying a $1.2 million townhouse faces tens of thousands of dollars in duty on the purchase alone, chewing through equity they’ve spent a lifetime building. Some states have introduced concessions for downsizers, but they’re often too narrow to make a material difference.
When Suburb Succession functions properly, it’s a genuine win for everyone. The retiree gets to stay in the suburb they love, in a home better suited to their needs, with freed-up equity to fund travel, healthcare or a more comfortable retirement.
The young family moving into their former home gains access to an established suburb with great schools and a strong community. And the suburb itself maintains its demographic diversity, its vibrancy, its mix of ages and life stages.
I’ve worked with buyers on both sides of this equation. I’ve helped retirees find quality attached housing that finally felt like the right fit and helped younger buyers access family homes in suburbs they never thought possible.
When it works, it’s genuinely wonderful.
Suburb succession is not a fringe issue; it’s a mainstream housing challenge that will only intensify as Australia ages.
Governments at every level need to treat medium-density housing not as a planning inconvenience but as an essential piece of the housing puzzle. That means meaningful stamp duty relief for downsizers, streamlined approvals for well-designed medium-density projects, and developer incentives that make townhouse and low-rise apartment construction viable at scale.
The TOD precincts taking shape across Sydney will, over time, generate meaningful new supply, but it will take time.
If you’re a retiree or pre-retiree thinking about downsizing, don’t wait for the perfect product to magically appear. Work with a buyer’s agent who knows your target suburb inside out. Someone with access to off-market opportunities and early intelligence on new projects before they hit general listings.
Think laterally too: could you move a suburb or two across and still be within easy reach of the doctor, the grandchildren, and the golf club? Sometimes that small shift opens a world of options.
For younger buyers hoping to break into an established suburb, properties will come to market as this succession plays out. Being ready to move decisively will be critical.
Suburb succession is inevitable. The demographic wave is too large and too powerful to be stopped. The question is simply whether we build the housing infrastructure to let it happen gracefully or keep making it harder than it needs to be for older Australians to hand the baton and younger ones to pick it up.
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