More than one in six people expect to top 65 by the time they finish repaying their mortgage, data from Hargreaves Landsdown shows.
A poll by the finance broker finds that 17% of adults expect to be over the traditional retirement age by they have settled their home loans, while 9% expect to be over 70 before this happens.
The data comes after the government and lenders have suggested home loan extensions for borrowers who fear they will struggle with repayments, following interest rates rising by 50 basis points to 5% last week, the 13th rate hike in a row taking it to the highest level in 15 years.
The average age people expect to have repaid their mortgage has jumped by three years to 60, from just a year earlier, according to the financial services firm’s study.
It adds among those polled who were aged 55 and over and still had a mortgage, 18% say they expect to repay over the age of 70, while 7% add they will never be able to repay their home loan.
Among retirees, 80% owned their homes outright, while 6% still had a mortgage.
Hargreaves Lansdown head of personal finance Sarah Coles says: “Higher mortgage rates are likely to mean even more people paying their mortgage later in life.
“It has pushed the average two-year fixed rate deal to around 6.2%, according to Moneyfacts, causing a remortgaging nightmare for hundreds of thousands of people.
“As a result, lenders have agreed with the government to make it easier to temporarily extend the term of the mortgage, without affordability checks.
“It is designed to make short-term mortgage tweaks easier, but there’s every chance that people taking advantage may end up with a more permanent change, to make monthly payments affordable.
Coles adds: “It’s not just higher mortgage rates causing the problem. The cost of property shoulders much of the blame. With the average cost of a home now at £286,000, building a deposit takes far longer – especially because we’re having to save while paying through the nose for everything from bills and rent to food. It means the average age of a first-time buyer has hit 30.
“The fact that FTBs are borrowing so many multiples of their income means repayments are stretched over a longer period too.
“The English Housing Survey in 2021/22 found that of those FTBs who had a mortgage, over half, or 56%, had a repayment period of 30 years.
“And even those who buy relatively young, with a shorter mortgage, can run into all kinds of trouble along the way, which pushes their mortgage repayment back.
“Even if you snap up a property at the average age of 30, and take out a 25-year mortgage, it only takes the odd life hiccup to push payments into your 60s.”
Hargreaves Landsdown’s poll was conducted by research firm Opinium, which contacted 2,000 people in May.
