When the baby-boomer generation bought their first homes they were typically in their twenties, took out a 25-year loan, and fully expected to be mortgage-free long before they hit the big Six-Oh.
Bring on the cruises and the two-seater sports cars. With an empty nest, no debts to speak of and a final salary pension, life for some really could look like those ads where elegantly greying couples wandered hand-in-hand on the beach.
Ha! That was then. Today’s first-time buyers are far more likely still to be paying off a mortgage well into their sixties and possibly beyond. Borrowers are signing up in ever greater numbers to ultra-long term loans of 30 years or even more as a way of being able to afford to buy a first home.
More than one in four buyers last year (26 per cent) took out a 35-year loan, up from 16 per cent in 2007, according to the latest Generation Rent report from the Halifax.
Soon, the idea of a traditional 25-year mortgage may seem as quaint as using a pager, or a fax machine.
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