Jun 09

Many Retirees Still Struggling with Mortgages

Many Retirees Still Struggling with Mortgages

 

Many Retirees Still Struggling with Mortgages. Image courtesy of hyena reality / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many Retirees Still Struggling with Mortgages. Image courtesy of hyena reality / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The number of seniors still making house payments into retirement has grown following the recession.

“It’s a big problem coming off the housing bubble,” says Cary Sternberg, an adviser to seniors on housing issues in a Florida retirement community called The Villages. “A growing number of seniors are struggling with what to do about their home and their mortgage and their retirement.”

Some baby boomers are finding they didn’t save enough for retirement, some may have lost their jobs prior to wanting to retire, some may have overpaid for their homes during the housing boom, some took out home equity lines of credit or dipped into their retirement funds prior to retirement. Whatever the case, a growing number are still stuck with a house payment into retire.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office for Older Americans says 30 percent of home owners 65 and older – or 6.5 million home owners — were paying a mortgage in 2013. That is up from 22 percent in 2001. The number of people 75 and older who still have a mortgage climbed from 8 percent in 2001 to 21 percent in 2011, according to a Federal Reserve study.

The median mortgage held by Americans 65 and older has more than doubled since 2001, blooming from $43,400 to $88,000, according to the CFPB.

In some cases, some older Americans are finding they just can’t keep up with their house payments in retirement, and some have lost their homes to foreclosure. An AARP study in 2012 found that 1.5 million Americans 50 and older lost their homes between 2007 and 2011.

Some older Americans are being forced to sell. For example, Seattle home owner Gayle Richards, 63, has two mortgages on her home that are for more than $150,000. In the Seattle-Tacoma-Everett area alone, 34 percent of home owners 65 and older were holding one or more mortgages in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Richards, who is in the midst of divorce proceedings, says she can no longer afford to pay  her health insurance, car insurance, cellphone plan, and house payments on just Social Security disability benefits and a pension.

“I have to sell the house. I have no choice,” Richards told The Associated Press. “It’s just difficult because I don’t know where I’ll go.”

Source: “House Payments Burden More Older Americans,” The Associated Press (June 3, 2015)

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