The aim of this paper is to analyse security aspects on home ownership in a European perspective. The conventional view is that homeowners' security is achieved through equity formation in their homes. This opens up possibilities to withdraw equity in order to supplement a faulting social support system, to retire early or, in general, to increase consumption. This can be achieved through re-mortgaging or by moving and scaling down. These opportunities are predominant in all parts of Europe, and have been proliferated through the recent price boom. Research demonstrates that equity release in any form seldom happens. Instead, security through home ownership seems to be mitigated through low housing expenditures in older age, as a result of debt repayments at an earlier age. This life cycle pattern of housing expenditures may change in the future with more debts and a lower inflation rate. The housing security aspect creates differences across tenure forms and has wider distributional effects, due to differences in household composition in different countries and due to the size of the owner-occupied sector.