While many older homeowners own their properties free and clear of a mortgage payment, this is not a feasible reality for many seniors. In fact, more than 10.5 million Americans at or over the age of 65 still pay into a forward mortgage loan, according to a study conducted by LendingTree.
To get a better grasp of the dynamics involved with older homeowners maintaining their existing mortgages, LendingTree took a closer look at data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), which helped illuminate “the share of housing units with mortgages in each of the nation’s 50 largest metros owned and occupied by people 65 and older,” the organization said.
Across all 50 examined metro areas, nearly 20% of all homes that had mortgage loans attached to them are owned by someone at least 65 years old. Homes owned by this cohort, the results said, “tend to be less valuable than those owned by the general population, while monthly housing costs tend to be lower.”
The metro areas with the largest shares of older homeowners included Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. More than one-quarter (25.31%) of all homeowners in these regions are at least 65 years old, a figure that drops to 19.76% when averaged across all 50 examined metros.
Conversely, the smallest shares of senior-owned homes — 14.64% — were contained within Austin and Dallas, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah.
LendingTree previously examined this statistic in 2021, and the figure has risen by roughly 500,000 people since that point. Other than that, there is relatively minor variation between the data from 2021 and 2024 when comparing the results, however Miami no longer has a higher concentration of senior homeowners and Houston no longer has one of the smallest.
While these older homeowners are likely impacted financially by continuing to make forward mortgage payments, their housing costs still tend to be lower than their younger counterparts on average.
“Largely because their homes are typically less expensive, median monthly housing costs paid by 65-and-older homeowners with mortgages are usually hundreds of dollars less expensive than median monthly housing costs paid by the general population of homeowners with mortgages,” the results said. “Other factors, such as lower mortgage rates or property tax exemptions, can also help reduce housing costs for older homeowners.”
The reverse mortgage industry has consistently expressed frustration with the idea that its penetration rate continues to lag behind the traditional mortgage industry, despite feeling that there is a mismatch between the age of older homeowners and the decades-long terms they may be entering into with a new, forward loan.
Reverse mortgage industry trainer and speaker Martin Andelman crystallized this perspective in a 2019 episode of The RMD Podcast.
“It’s also worth mentioning that [in terms of] 30-year mortgages, I promise you, no one ever sat around and talked about 30-year mortgages thinking they’d be perfect for 70 and 80-year olds,” he said at the time. “30-year mortgages were never meant to be for them. And now, I bump into people all the time who could be 72 years old, just refinanced two years ago, and now have only 28 years to go. What could go wrong?”