Housing debt is increasing for older Americans, according to a recent report by the Employee Benefits Research Institute, a nonpartisan research institution based in Washington, D.C.

The incidence of debt, the average amount of debt and the debt as a percentage of assets increased for households with a head of the household who is 75 or older, says EBRI in its report Debt of the Elderly and Near Elderly, 1992 – 2010.

For those with heads of households 55 and older, the driver of the debt is home mortgages and home equity loans. Almost three-fourths of debt payments are for housing debt for this group as a whole.

For those 75 and older, housing debt accounts for two-thirds of debt payments and reached $52,000 in 2010, compared with a low of nearly $19,000 in 1995. For those 65 to 74, it increased from almost $27,000 in 1995 to $70,000 in 2010. And for those 55 to 64, it increased from $52,400 to $97,000 for those years.

For all households with a head 55 or older, total debt payments as a percentage of income increased from 10.8 percent in 2007 to 11.4 percent in 2010. Average debt increased from $73,727 in 2007 to $75,082 in 2010, and debt as a percentage of assets increased from 7.4 percent in 2007 to 8.5 percent in 2010.

“The debt levels among those with housing debt have obvious and serious implications for the future retirement security of these Americans, perhaps most significantly that these families are potentially at risk of losing what is typically their most important asset—their home,” says EBRI.

In most cases, falling back on a home for income in retirement shows a lack of planning, say some advisors.

“It is frustrating because we see people come in who want to take more than they can sustain from their portfolio,” says David P. Giegerich, managing partner of Paradigm Wealth Management LLC in Bridgewater, N.J. “If people go through their 401(k) early in retirement, their home is next.”

A home should not be considered a primary asset unless the household is willing to move to a much less expensive part of the country from where they are living, Giegerich says.

In many instances, Giegerich says, the financial industry has failed its clients because advisors concentrate on accumulating wealth and the lump sum in a portfolio. “What they should be looking at is how much that portfolio will generate in income, and plan ahead,” he says.

Mark D. Kemp, president of Kemp & Associates Retirement Services in Harleysville, Penn., agrees. “I see a bigger issue here than borrowing against a house,” says Kemp. “It is indicative of not saving enough. If a person had a rainy day fund or money elsewhere, he would not tap into home equity. Borrowing against the home shows the person is living beyond their means.

“We are staring down the barrel of the perfect storm financially, if I can mix my metaphors,” he adds. “You have the longevity issue, the stock market volatility, inflationary risks for medical care and the lack of rainy day funds. If you are a financial planner, it is a great time to be in business.”

However, borrowing against the home is not always done as a last resort, according to Robert Klein, founder of Retirement Income Center, a registered investment advisor in Newport Beach, Calif.

Borrowing against a home at today’s low interest rates and investing the money in something that yields higher interest could result in a profit, he says.

“The other thing that comes into play is the current popularity of reverse mortgages. A reverse mortgage could be tapped into at an opportune time instead of raiding the portfolio when the market is down,” Klein says.

The key to borrowing wisely is planning for retirement when you won’t have a steady income to pay it back, he adds.