Research commissioned by Simply Business showed that the number of older landlords had increased by 33pc since 2009, with a particularly large rise in the number of female pensioners renting out a property – up by 43pc since 2009.
Danny Silver, managing partner of the Villages Group, an "active living" resort for over-fifties in France, said: "Long gone are the days of final salary pensions and relying on a decent state pension once you hit retirement. Older people who have worked hard all their lives and want to retain a decent standard of living must find the extra funds themselves, but with living costs rising faster than salaries, not to mention falling annuity rates, this is easier said than done."
Belvoir, a national lettings agency, said it had seen a surge in older people becoming landlords in the past four years, with a third more people in their sixties on the books as landlords than four years ago.
Some of these "grandlords" have become buy-to-let investors by accident, owing to a more difficult financial climate than they had expected, Belvoir said. They had expected to sell their properties to finance their retirement, but with rents rising and property prices falling in many areas they had judged it more sensible to keep their property and rent it out.
Some pensioners have always planned to use rental income to finance their retirement. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculated in 2012 that pensioners needed £12,000 a year to be able to fully participate in retirement. Many people have not saved enough in their pensions to finance their retirement.
According to the National Association of Pension Funds, 48pc of all workers are planning to work beyond the state pension age because they simply cannot afford to retire. Figures from the government-funded Money Advice Service last week showed that more than four in 10 people were resigned to working as long as they could because they had not saved enough.
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