Adapting to changing borrower behaviours

Today’s mortgage clients expect more. Borrowers today have complex financial situations, so they need more financial education and knowledge from lenders and brokers. They seek greater flexibility from mortgages and demand more tailored options from lenders. These evolving demands are reshaping the industry, pushing it to keep pace with borrowers’ changing behaviours.

Hodge Resi Retire is a key example of how lenders like us are not only reacting to these changes but leading the way in redefining later life lending. Designed to provide flexibility and freedom, it offers later life borrowers a tailored lending solution as they move into retirement, allowing them to thrive long into their later years.

The blueprint changes of later life borrowing 

The financial journeys have moved from linear routes to more complex and varied ones. In the 1960s, the average first-time buyer was just 23 years old. Life’s milestones often followed a predictable path: get married, buy a house, have children, work in stable job, rarely switching careers, pay off the mortgage and retire. This straightforward trajectory often made financial planning and borrowing simpler.

Today, the route people take in life can be vastly different. Buying a home is not always a priority or a reality for those in their 20s, pushing the average age of first-time buyers now to 35 years. There’s also been a 33% rise in first-time buyers over the age of 55 years. For some, this delayed home ownership is due to financial constraints, while for others, it’s because buying a home has taken a backseat to pursuing career opportunities or lifestyle choices, like further education or travel.

These lifestyle shifts are just some of the factors transforming the mortgage market. Rising property prices, increasing life expectancy and shifting retirement patterns are all reshaping the needs and expectations of borrowers.

This shift in borrowing behaviour marks a change from previous generations, where owning a home was the first major step on their financial journey – a “paint by numbers approach” to life’s milestones. Today, buying a home is increasingly one part of a much broader financial picture, one that fits within a person’s lifestyle goals. This change in the borrower’s perspective is driving the demand for lenders to offer more than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ mortgage. Borrowers want unique and tailored lifestyle lending solutions.

How Hodge is responding to later life lending needs

At Hodge, we threw away the “paint by numbers” rule book long ago. Offering flexible, tailored solutions – not off the shelf mortgages – is what we do best. Recently, we’ve taken bold steps to reshape the lending market, ensuring it better reflects the needs of the borrowers. Hodge Resi Retire is the next chapter in our portfolio. It’s a lending solution that works seamlessly for mature borrowers, focusing on flexibility and individuality. Resi Retire is designed to provide options for customers whose needs don’t fit the mould of traditional lending. By combining our expertise in later life lending with insight-led understanding of borrower needs, we define customers by their aspirations and lifestyles – not their age.

We lend with a purpose. We provide solutions for clients who are looking to free up funds for home improvements, reduce monthly outgoings or gift to family for house deposits: Resi Retire offers financial freedom so clients can live and plan the future they want.