This research note presents the results from an analysis of age pensioner home owner house values. Part of the aim of the analysis is to determine the proportion of pensioner household, pensioners and total pension paid to pensioners in households where the house value is one million dollars or more, with a view to assessing the impact of a policy proposal to cap pensions based on house values. 

We consider tenure type, specifically focusing on home owners (with and without a mortgage) while also considering the effects of location, specifically state/territory and metropolitan/non-metropolitan regional characteristics. 

We use ANU’s microsimulation model of the Australian Tax and Transfer system PolicyMod to estimate the impact on households and the Commonwealth Budget of all of the major changes in legislation in this area and to develop estimates of the total impact on different household and income level types. 

House value is estimated using the estimated sale of price of the dwelling from the 2015-16 ABS Survey of Income and Housing, inflated in the model using state specific house price inflation values generated from the ABS Residential Property Price Indexes: Eight Capital Cities publication (ABS Catalogue No. 6416.0).