Articles and web pages aimed at first-time buyers often feature pictures of couples in their 20s or 30s, like the image above.
Likewise, content about pensioners is usually accompanied by stock photos of white-haired, walking aid-equipped octogenarians, despite the fact some pensioners may be in their mid-50s (FT Adviser may be guilty as charged).
Mortgage borrowers and pensioners may therefore seem worlds apart, but the challenges that aspiring first-time buyers face mean the two demographics are coming together.
The aforementioned stereotype of first-time buyers is not necessarily wrong. Five in eight mortgages (63 per cent) were taken out by first-time buyers in joint names last year, according to analysis from Halifax.
The lender also found that the average first-time buyer was over the age of 30 in all regions and nations last year, with the UK average at 32 years old.
But buying a first home is not a milestone that everybody celebrates in their 30s. Data from Santander shows that nearly one in five first-time buyers (18 per cent) were at least 40 years old in the first quarter of 2024.
And like some kind of crossover, the oldest customer the bank helped to buy their first home so far this year was 67 years old.
Even if a first-time buyer fits the average profile of being in their 30s, mortgages are increasingly encroaching on pensions and retirement.
If the traditional view is that borrowers pay off their mortgage before retiring, with a sufficient number of working years left to boost their pension savings, this is something that is being dispelled.
A Freedom of Information request by LCP partner Steve Webb found year-on-year increases in the share of new mortgages with a term ending beyond the state pension age. Borrowers under the age of 40 were the fastest-growing group to take out such mortgages.
While mortgage terms can be reduced later down the line, and inflation can favour borrowers in the long-run, the challenges of delaying home ownership mean perceptions about retirement are also being reconsidered.
Paying off a mortgage while being eligible for the state pension, for example, is a notion that we may have to become more familiar with. Research from LV last year found that a third of borrowers (32 per cent) did not think they would pay off their mortgage by the age of 65.
In 2022, more than half of people owned their own home by age 36 years. This has increased from 32 years in 2004, according to the Office for National Statistics
Building new homes is often cited as a solution to increasing home ownership, but the promise of more homes has so far not been enough.
Figures available up to the 2022-23 financial year show that "net additional dwellings" peaked at 248,590 in 2019-20. The government had set a target of 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of this decade.
