Karena Duane

Some of the lenders have pushed that out to 70.

And now we've new entrants that have come into the market as well.

And they're going up as far as 80 years of age.

It's not ideal.

It does give people, I suppose, options.

And I think anything that gives people options is a real win.

But there are things to remember.

Like if you are in your early 40s and you're looking at going to 80, you know, that is a long time and you really need to know how am I going to continue to pay that beyond retirement.

But it's not all doom and gloom either if you're in your 40s, because people in their 40s have probably had longer term to save their money.

Some people may have had redundancy payments, you know, that they can put a bigger deposit.

So if they can keep the term as short as they can, they might actually end up paying less over their mortgage term than maybe if they'd taken it out when they were 25 or 30.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

So just because you can borrow, you know, 600,000, maybe it's not going to suit your overall lifestyle.

So if you are offered that mortgage to 75 or 80, but if you do have the affordability to pay it down, get your lender to check, you know, how much interest am I going to pay?

Bring it up to 75 versus to 80.

And you'd actually be really shocked by the difference that a couple of years later,

Depending on the mortgage you're taking out, if you're taking, we'll say, €400,000 or €500,000, you could save yourself €20,000 or €30,000 in interest.

I think they would be at this stage, yeah, because I think it's just, you know, people are living longer as well.

While we have a pension crisis, we do have people that have kind of steadier incomes going into retirement.

I think the way people are working is changing as well.