The number of over 50s who have searched for mortgages with 10 to 15-year terms has increased by 156% from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024, Legal & General data reveals.

Searches have also gone up by 44% from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024.

Legal & General says the findings coincide with a growing trend of people working longer and often transitioning into retirement gradually.

Searches for 21 to 25-year terms among over 50s shoots up by 83% from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024.

Data collected by Legal & General’s Ignite platform indicates that borrowers in the over 50s age bracket are researching mortgage deals that go far beyond a 10 to 15-year term.

Among the over 50s customers, including customers of ages up to 70, searches for a 21 to 25-year term mortgage have increased by 50% from the last quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of this year and by 83% from 12 months to Q1 2024.

The number of over 50s looking for mortgages with a 16 to 20-year term increased by 88% from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024 and 136% between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024.

When compared against the entire sample, which includes remortgaging customers from age 18 to 70, the overall proportion of over-50s who searched for a remortgage option remained consistent year on year.

In Q1 2023, 28% of all remortgage searches were ordered by a customer aged over 50, the same was true for Q1 2024.

Meanwhile, average remortgage loan amounts are also increasing.

The average loan amount searched for by advisers on behalf of all remortgage customers in Q1 this year was £224,129, up from £221,625 in the same period last year.

The average purchase value for remortgage customers went up by 1.50% to £409,787 from Q1 2023 to Q1 this year.

The size of the average loan amounts varies according to the age group of the remortgaging customer.

In Q1 2023, a borrower aged between 18 and 30 owed an average of £207,720. In Q1 2024, the average loan amount of a borrower in the same age group was £205,558, 1% lower.

However, average loan amounts increased the most among remortgagers aged between 51 and 55, climbing up by 18.9% from £197,343 in Q1 2023 to £234,716 in Q1 2024.

Legal & General says the year-on-year increase reflects a tangible rise in the volume of older remortgagers liable to carry large amounts of mortgage debt well past retirement age.

The increase in remortgaging activity is not limited to the over-50s. Between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, there was a 53% increase in the levels of remortgage activity across the UK market.

When comparing Q1 2023 to Q1 2024, activity saw an even greater increase, reaching upwards to 153%.

Legal & General’s Ignite data showed that the average age of a remortgage customer in 2023 was 43.6.

The 18 to 30-year-old age category saw the largest growth in searches between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024 with 66%. However, the second largest growth in activity was in the 56 to 65-year-old age bracket, with 65% in total growth.

This was followed by the 31 to 40-year-old and the 51 to 55-year-old age brackets which each saw a 54% increase from the previous quarter. 51 to 55-year-olds grew from 713 to 1,100 and 31 to 40-year-olds grew from 2,244 to 3,455.

Legal & General Mortgage Services managing director Kevin Roberts days: “As our data has revealed, there is a significant increase in homeowners aged over 50 looking to remortgage on a term that is likely to spill over into their retirement, although how and when people retire looks to be changing. In a challenging and dynamic interest rate environment, a large uptick in remortgaging requests was perhaps inevitable.”

“If interest rates remained low, many homeowners might have stayed put and renewed with their existing lender. But in a newly competitive market, more people than ever are carefully considering their options to ensure they can access the best rate possible.”