Abstract:

The impact of housing inheritance on housing provision has been overlooked in previous work, which has concentrated on quantifying housing wealth and ascertaining whether or not it results in or contributes to social stratification. However, Australian research shows that while housing inheritance may only have modest effects on the wealth of beneficiaries, most of whom are middle-aged home owners themselves, there are important implications for the Australian private rental sector. Many beneficiaries let their inherited dwellings while those dwellings that are sold are often attractive to investors because of their often low capital value and central city location. In contrast to most investors in private rental housing, beneficiaries who become landlords are not always motivated by financial gain. The results suggest that housing ingeritance may offer an opportune new source of private rental housing, although like the sector istelf, the supply of dwellings from this source is not directly amenable to government control.