From Overseas Press

Getting older now means more housing distress

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-06-24 10:57

Amma Holmes expected to pay off the mortgage on her Tampa, Florida, home in the next few years. Instead, she lost her job and her two adult sons have moved back in to help pay her bills.

She isn't alone.

For the first time in generations, getting older means carrying more mortgage debt and less savings into retirement, thanks to the housing crash and rising joblessness among those 45 and older.

The average age of borrowers seeking foreclosure prevention help from CredAbility, a national nonprofit credit counseling agency based in Atlanta, rose this year to 48 from 46 last year, and 43 in 2006.

Holmes, 53, modified her mortgage earlier this year, cutting monthly payments by $375 a month. But she lost her job at Tampa General Hospital, and her sons moved in to help pay the debt.

"In 2014, my house would have been paid for," she said, but the end date is now 2036 after the modification. "I feel good about the modification, but it's like starting all over again."

Holmes originally bought her home in 1993. But she refinanced with an adjustable-rate mortgage in 2006, and then struggled to make payments when her hours were reduced.

With the wage cut, "I was always behind, with my paycheck what it was. I didn't have that much to pay," said Holmes, who is looking for a new position at the hospital where she worked for over 20 years.

Older homeowners are a fast-growing share of distressed borrowers, but have fewer years to recoup declining home equity and greater difficulty replacing lost income.

Unemployment is near record highs for people aged 45 and older, just as they hit peak wage-earning years. The heavy job losses and financial markets crises have eaten away at retirement accounts, hiked medical costs and stifled spending.

"Someone of this age is hoping to have their home paid off by the time they retire, and instead, they're looking at exactly the opposite: the threat of losing that home that they've put years and perhaps decades of responsible payment history behind," said Gail Cunningham, spokesperson for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The share of older owners with mortgages rose during the boom years, when getting loans was much easier and buying second homes or tapping home equity were the norm.

By 2007, in the early stages of the deepest housing crash since the Great Depression, 53 percent of homes headed by owners aged 50 or older had a mortgage - up from 34 percent two decades earlier, the AARP said, citing Harvard data.