Letting agents to face increasingly older renters as home ownership ‘out of reach’
Hamptons say there will be a million households aged over 65 renting their homes within 10 years.
Numbers of older people renting their homes is set to double by 2030, according to estate agency Hamptons.
After a steady rise in the total of older renters in recent years, the figure is set to accelerate quickly, the agency predicts.
The slowly rising share of older households renting has been coupled with a much more rapid increase in the number of older households more generally.
Taken together, it means the number of households renting in England aged 65 and above will double within seven years.
Today, there are around 400,000 over-65 households renting, and this figure is set to pass the 1 million mark in 2033.
Vast majority
Just 5.7% of households aged over 65 today rent their home privately, but the English Housing Survey suggests that the age group succeeding them are nearly twice as likely to rent privately. Rented households make up 11.1% of people aged 55-64 years.
The vast majority of households (78%) aged 65 and above currently own their home outright.
However, the number of older households who are renting their home overtook the numbers with a mortgage back in 2010.
Increasing numbers are likely to rent when they retire”

.Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, says: “The rising number of older renters reflects the gradual unwinding of the large increase in homeownership rates after the Second World War.
As younger generations who missed out on the homeownership boom grow older, increasing numbers are likely to rent when they retire, she says.
“As households get onto the ladder later in life, over the next decade there’s likely to be an increase in older households still paying off their mortgage beyond the age of 65.
“However, this increase is likely to be a small fraction of the growing number who will be paying rent beyond pensionable age”, she says.