Huge rise in young buyers on 'marathon mortgages'

YOUNG Londoners desperate to get on the housing ladder are signing up at an alarming pace to “marathon mortgages” that last at least 35 years, warn financial advisers.

- Simon English

High numbers of under 30s are buying houses or more usually flats with mortgage deals that extend beyond a typical retirement age of 67, in the latest sign of the yawning gap between demand and supply in the capital’s property market.

Although the longer-term deals reduce monthly repayments, they also hugely increase the size of the total debt in ways some warn could later be seen as a mis-selling scandal encouraged by big banks.

Figures from financial data company Experian show that in 2020 11% of under 30s in London who opened a mortgage did so with a term of 35 years plus. In 2023 this figure has risen to 27% as rising mortgage rates have forced them to take out loans with longer terms to make them affordable.