Australia’s suburban property markets are heading for a shake-up. In
any suburb at any time there is a transition going on: children grow
up, leave home and Mum and Dad find themselves ambling around a house
that is much too big. The difference in 2005 is that the number of
over-sized half-empty houses is about to rocket.

The baby boom of the 1940s and ’50s is set to suppress prices in large
sections of the home market in the coming decade. Population experts
estimate that five million people will retire in the next 10 years:
that’s one in four people on the street today. Looking at the figures
another way, about 12 per cent of Australians are now over 65; by 2035,
that figure is expected to be 22 per cent

Many of these baby-boomers will eventually think about selling their
houses at the same time. If you want to be ahead of the market, now is
the time to plan what you will do with the family home. After you
consider the implications of negative gearing and capital gains tax
(CGT) — not to mention the challenge of trying to rent out an aging
house in an aging suburb — the numbers point towards selling up.