I am 70 and retired, can I get a mortgage?
That’s a very good question…
Of course, any mortgage lending is based on your individual circumstances such as income, expenditure, credit score etc, but to answer the question – yes!
If the mortgage lender deems it affordable for you, it may well be possible to take out a mortgage at this stage of your life. Now, as to whether you should take a mortgage out at this stage of your life is an entirely different question and will very much depend on your individual circumstances.
And although I appreciate property prices are increasing in many areas, so investing in property could make sense to some, it’s important to understand that just because you can get a mortgage, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
Mortgages for older people
To meet the needs of an ageing population, many lenders have become more flexible when it comes to maximum lending ages, with many smaller Building Societies lending up to the age of 85.
There are even some smaller Building Societies out there that don’t have a maximum lending age limit at all.
So it seems many smaller mortgage providers are taking action but this raises the question, are larger high street lenders doing enough to help older borrowers?
Well… the good news is some high street mortgage providers are making a start.
This week we’ve seen Halifax increase their maximum lending age to 80, and Nationwide raise their maximum lending age for existing customers to 85.
We think this is fantastic news and a step in the right direction to help older borrowers. Hopefully, this will lead to other high street lenders following suit.
What’s the catch?
Naturally, borrowing into later life will come with some restrictions and caveats to think about.
If you are married and borrowing with a partner, the lender will want to be comfortable with your income situation should one of you pass away. Also, because there might be a limit on how long you can borrow your mortgage over, this could have a restriction on how much you could borrow.
Of course, in a perfect world we’d all love to have our mortgages paid off by the time we retire (at 50 I hear you cry…) but as we are all too aware, this isn’t a perfect world – for various reasons, many of us will carry our mortgages into later life.
So what do you think about mortgages for older people? Would this be helpful to you, or do you have concerns about post-retirement borrowing?