Recognition of the multiple advantages of home ownership to families, governments and society at large has in effect constructed a social contract with individual savings for home ownership being rewarded by favourable tax and pension treatments. In the context of the International Year of Older Persons, this article discusses the importance of home ownership to older Australians and, in the light of the prevailing fall in home ownership rates and an end to explicit policy support for home ownership, it examines some of the implications for the future.