A Million Pensioners with a Mortgage

According to the Daily Telegraph more than 1 million people are going to have to repay their mortgage after they retire. it would seem that nearly 250,000 people aged over 65 are still paying off their mortgage and many experts agree that a further 1 million homeowners approaching retirement age have still not paid off their mortgage.

Many of us bought endowment policies back in the days when they were supposed to guarantee paying out, not just enough to cover the mortgage debt, but a good deal extra to supplement our pensions. What a shattered dream that has turned out to be. The net result is that many pensioners are going to face financial hardship as they struggle to pay off their debt from a pension that has failed to live up to expectations.

It can only be a question of time before interest rates are seen to rise again and this can only make matters worse for cash strapped pensioners. So called quantitative easing (banks printing money) has given stock markets around the world a bit of a boost and this must help pension funds, but it's only a short-term fix and may in any case be too late for those approaching retirement.

I have to admit that it's a bit depressing and it is becoming ever more apparent that people are going to have to retire much later in life, or are going to have to come up with some method of supplementing their pension to overcome their financial difficulties.

The Retirement Revenue website has a number of ideas to assist the baby boomer generation with with ways to increase their income and there are other sites too, such as Cash in Retirement, that offer helpful advice. With a bit of research and determination it should be possible to create a modest additional income that will help to pay off the mortgage.
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