When you are constructing a retirement portfolio, it is important to focus on companies with defensive qualities, strong business models, positive long-term outlooks, and a history of dividend payments.

By prioritising these attributes, it is possible to create a portfolio with the potential for solid, sustainable growth while also generating a reliable and increasing source of passive income to support you in retirement.

But which ASX shares could be good options for a retirement portfolio? Let's take a look at two that Bell Potter is tipping as buys. They are as follows:

Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund (ASX: QRI)

Bell Potter is a big fan of Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund and named it as one of its top picks for 2025.

The broker notes that "QRI provides investors exposure to the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) loans, secured by real property mortgages that are diversified by borrower, loan type, property sector and location."

It sees opportunities for the company to grow its market share and deliver good returns for investors in the coming years. It said:

The manager uses their extensive experience in the CRE sector and portfolio size to optimise loan selection to ensure a steady stream of distributions to unitholders whilst managing risk. Since the GFC and the implementation of the Basel III regulatory framework, the share of traditional financiers in the CRE sector has been steadily declining, creating more investment opportunities for QRI, which is further strengthened by the continued growth of the Australian property market.

The trust trades near its Net Tangible Asset (NTA) value and at a net yield of 8.4%. During the current elevated interest rate environment, the trust has generated pre-tax NTA returns of 9.1% over the last year and 7.8% p.a. over the last 3 years.

In FY 2024, the company paid a 14 cents per share dividend. This equates to an 8.4% dividend yield at current prices.

Transurban Group (ASX: TCL)

Another ASX share that could be a good option for a retirement portfolio is Transurban Group. It is toll road operator that owns a collection of high quality road across the globe.

Transurban could be a good fit because it offers a combination of defensive qualities, long-term growth potential, and an attractive yield.

Bell Potter, which has Transurban on its Australian equities panel, highlights that the company is benefiting from the current inflationary environment. It explains:

We believe the current inflationary environment is favourable for Transurban given its inflation-linked revenue stream with annual escalators. Moreover, TCL provides low risk cash flows over the long term, with long concession duration (30+ years), and relative traffic/income resilience. The group's current pipeline of growth projects is $3.3 billion (TCL's share of total project cost) and further huge development opportunities are expected over the next few decades, supported by population and economic growth.

The broker is forecasting a dividend yield of approximately 5% over the next 12 months.