Turning 50 and rethinking RIO

I turned 50 this year which technically makes me eligible for a RIO mortgage with a few lenders. But the reality is that, like many people in my position, I’d be looking at other mainstream options first before considering RIO.

An increasing number of lenders are now offering mortgages to age 80 and beyond and the options available to older borrowers like me are wider than ever. But with the lines blurring between traditional mainstream mortgage advice and advice to customer over 50, is it right that we still refer to it as later life lending?

Clearly older borrowers will have very different requirements to first-time buyers, but in the current economic climate customers from across the different age brackets are facing similar challenges.

How do you navigate this market whatever age you are? Seek the advice of a trusted mortgage adviser. They are the experts and can help a customer navigate all the various options which are suitable whatever your circumstances are.

While there is an increasing number of options available for customers aged 50+ RIO mortgages have been part of the mortgage landscape for several years now, and what was once seen as a niche solution is becoming an established option.

 

 

At Nottingham Building Society we’ve seen record demand for RIO mortgages this year. Applications in 2025 are already running at three times the volume we saw in 2024 year-to-date, showing that awareness and broker confidence in the product is growing fast.

This growth isn’t surprising when you consider the ticking timebomb of interest-only maturities. Around 650,000 mortgages are set to mature over the next 10 years. Many of these borrowers have no repayment vehicle in place, meaning their choices will be stark. Sell up, take out a lifetime mortgage, or look to RIO.

That highlights the point that this isn’t a niche product for people at the end of their financial journey, it’s increasingly part of the normal mortgage conversation for borrowers entering their second half of working life.

The term retirement interest-only can also be misleading. Borrowers don’t need to be retired, and in essence the product is simply an interest-only mortgage with an open-ended term.

Perhaps it’s time for the industry to reframe how it talks about RIOs. One idea could be to brand it as IO Flex – a name that better reflects the flexibility and life-stage adaptability of the product, without confining it to “retirement”.

Whatever the future holds, seek expert mortgage advice from a mortgage broker and you’ll be OK!

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