Nine out of 10 (90%) pension professionals reckon property has a role to play in supporting people’s retirement income.
just one in ten (10%) attendees at a Society of Pension Professionals (SPP) event on pensions adequacy said property doesn’t have a role to play.
They were asked the question against the backdrop of 15m people not saving enough for their retirement and the government establishing a Pensions Commission.
The government’s recent revival of the Pensions Commission came amid growing concern that future retirees may be financially worse off than current generations.
Pension professionals at the SPP event were also asked to what degree they thought pensions should support an individual’s broader financial needs.
Almost half of respondents (46%) thought that pensions should play a broader role with less than one in 20 (4%) answering “not at all.”
Just over a quarter (28%) said they thought pensions should play “a limited role, with careful design” while just over one in five (22%) said that they were open minded about the role of pension savings.
SPP Council member Calum Cooper, who chaired the event, said: “This SPP polling demonstrates an increasing recognition that individuals may need to draw on a range of assets and savings vehicles to achieve the standard of living they expect in later life, rather than being solely reliant on pensions.”
He said the findings also indicated significant support for the pensions ecosystem to evolve in a way that better reflects people’s wider financial needs, while still maintaining their core purpose of providing a sustainable retirement income.
He added: “Of course, any pathway to achieving this will take great skill and care.”