40% of Irish people do not expect to own a home outright by retirement
Ellen O'Donoghue
Over 10 per cent of Irish people do not want to own a property, according to a new survey.
The survey, commissioned by insurance broker Gallagher in Ireland, revealed that men are almost twice as likely as women to admit that they do not want to own a property, with 11 per cent of participants saying they do not want to own a home.
It found that 40 per cent of people who answered the survey do not expect to own a home outright by the time they retire, and 31 per cent expect to be repaying a mortgage in retirement.
Of those who expect to still be repaying a mortgage come retirement, over a third of the cohort expect the mortgage payments to still be ‘significant’ at that stage.
Meanwhile, more than half (54 per cent) of people aged between 25 and 34 expect to still have a mortgage by the time they retire.
Only 58 per cent of participants in the survey expect to own their home outright by the time they retire, with people in Munster most likely to believe this with 67 per cent holding that view.
More than six in 10 (63 per cent) of Irish women expect to own a property outright by the time they retire, compared to just over half (53 per cent) of Irish men.
People living in Dublin are least likely to believe they will own their home outright in retirement, with only 52 per cent holding that view.
Those living in Dublin were also most likely to say they will have a ‘significant’ mortgage in retirement, at 13 per cent, compared to the national average of nine per cent.
Just six per cent of those who currently have a mortgage expect to have a ‘significant’ amount left to repay by the time they retire, but the figure rose to 17 per cent of those who currently do not have a home loan.
Mr Roche-Kelly said these figures were “worrying”.
“This again could be due to today’s record house prices as well as the trend of people buying homes later in life.”
One in seven men, or 14 per cent, and about one in 12 women, or eight per cent, said they never want to own a property.
Jonathan Roche-Kelly, director of financial services for Gallagher in Ireland said that in recent years, there has been a shift away from Ireland’s traditional pattern of home ownership.
“Our survey findings suggest that for most Irish people, home ownership is still a goal, but it is interesting that a significant proportion of the population don’t ever want to own their own home,” he said.
“Today’s record house prices mean many people are simply priced out of the house market and maybe can’t visualise home ownership as a result.”
The 2022 Census highlighted the extent of the fall in home ownership rates in Ireland, with rates falling from 80 per cent in 1991 to 66 per cent in 2022.
Increasing house prices in recent decades is considered a contributing factor to the decrease.
House price inflation has continued to be strong in recent years, with Irish house prices now 16.8 per cent above the Celtic Tiger boom values.
The latest Central Statistics Office figures show that the median age of a house buyer is now 39, up from 35 in 2010.
The recent Census also found that the age at which the majority of Irish householders own their dwelling outright has increased, up from 56 years in 1991 to 59 years in 2022.
