Taking advantage of the difference between the remaining life of elderly residents and the life cycle of housing, housing-based pension can realize cash flow in advance through the integration of certain financial or non-financial mechanisms, especially the huge real estate resources owned by the elderly, and establish long-term, sustained, stable and even lifelong cash inflow for the elderly during their remaining life. That is, the "dead house" of the elderly is turned into "living money" to meet the two major needs of the elderly: "supporting the elderly at home" and "increasing their income".

However, in China, the traditional concept of "raising children to guard against old age" occupies the mainstream, and the tradition of leaving property to children is also deeply rooted. If we want to implement housing for the elderly, we need to face the challenge of this cultural tradition. On the one hand, for the urban population with very generous retirement benefits (such as retirees from government agencies and institutions), relying on expensive pensions is enough to support the elderly, and there is no need to "provide for the elderly with housing" at all; On the other hand, for those urban low-income people who do not have their own property rights, such as those who rent in low-rent housing or public rental housing, although they do have worries about providing for the elderly, they simply have no conditions and qualifications to talk about "providing for the elderly with housing". In other words, most people who own a house don't need to "support the elderly with a house", people who don't have a house or property rights can't "support the elderly with a house" at all, and the rich can't water the fields of the poor. This is the biggest limitation of "housing for the elderly".