Hopefully in a little over two years when I’m 55

No idea.

We were late onto the property ladder, finally buying 10 years ago exactly at the wrong time 🙁

I’m 42 at the moment and have £150k left on the original £250k mortgage.

Not sure how long that will take as the amount we can afford to overpay it varies. And realistically we’ll move somewhere bigger before it is paid off anyway.

I was 40 when I paid mine off I think.

I bought my house in ’92 though, a period when the housing market was in the doldrums, interest rates > 10% etc. My initial mortgage went though on Black Wednesday 😯

Suffice to say, house prices were a fraction of current prices.

I’m overpaying to clear it by 40. The plan is this is the forever house, so hopefully that’ll be the last time. It’ll double the amount of cash we have each month.

If you’ve looked at the figures and made your life decisions then fair play to you.

If you haven’t then take two minutes to whack in your figures here and see what difference overpaying would make.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-overpayment-calculator

(It’s not quite so compelling while interest rates are at an historic low – but that won’t last forever)

bought my house in ’92 though, a period when the housing market was in the doldrums, interest rates > 10% etc

I remember those days. Our first house, bought in 1981 was £16,000. We sold it 7 years later for £64,000. Paid 70 grand for the current house and could’ve sold it when we moved in for 80 grand. It then dropped to under 60 in no time at all. As interest rates rose we were offered the option of increasing the payments or maintaining the current monthly payment and extending the term. It went out by about 3 years at one point but came down as interest rates fell.

Happy days. Mind you, I’d rather those times than try and get on the property ladder now. My daughter’s plan for home ownership is to wait for mum and dad to die. Charming girl, but she has a point. I tell her she’d better pray that I die first, cos if Mrs Z goes first I’m selling up and drowning in coke and hoovers on the cash.

Paid our last one off when I was 33, a few weeks before the first bairn arrived. Then we bought a bigger house and should manage to pay it off by 46…juat being sensible and not getting max mortgages. Repayments are only 450 a month so we have an offset and chuck any extra in there to chip down the monthly repayments as we please.

We probably won’t. Have two mortgages on the house as an older one was base rate + 0.5% for lifetime of mortgage and we kept it 😀 and started another. Currently interest only. Second mortage will be paid off by repayment and AVC pension pot (I have a final salary too) when I retire. We’ll downsize/move somewhere cheaper, preferably by the coast. Clearly you do not live where I do – When we moved, our new house was double the old one.

42 now. Wil be 61 when it’s paid off. BUT we could sell it tomorrow and buy somewhere smaller in a less desirable area and live mortgage free. Her indoors is a bit posh though and has frowned upon that idea.

Will be 63, 33 now. Mortgage is £650 a month which I struggle to
pay as only earner with two kids.

When wife goes back to work next year will be overpaying as much as possible as I can’t stand debt.

Two decent earners, no kids means we paid cash in full for our house a few years ago aged 45ish. That was after renting abroad for a while. It’s a big investment and I’m expecting to downsize again in the years to come.

I’ll bet my flat cost less outright than some on here pay in a year towards their mortgage. It’s entirely possible to have no mortgage and a decent pot of savings. All about choices and what you want in life

Exactly. I have around 10 years left on my mortgage meaning I will be 59 when finished, assuming I keep up the massive over payments.

Why this old when paying it off? Because I paid interest only for way too many years while I was spending the money on more fun things than a mortgage. I preferred having the most spare money possible when younger as had more of a need for it so just down to choices.

Also have to consider that I could just move to a smaller house in a less nice area and have no mortgage immediately, but again not a choice I would make.

39 now and it has 9 years to run but I think it will be sooner than that as I have some overpayments I can chuck at it. Considering moving to an offset as my cash savings are about a third of the remaining mortgage but I don’t want to tie them up permanently in the house.

I’ll let you know when HSBC decide if I can have a mortgage or not. Flipping eck, what a process. 2 hour interview on every detail of my life, now 20days later and they’re still considering my application. 🙄

‘If’ it goes through then 60ish.

I’m using this period of extraordinarily low interest rates to clear all debt (some call it “purchasing assets”).

Within 29 months, I’ll be free of debt and own all assets outright. At the age of 39, if all goes to plan. 🙂

Who knows; perhaps rates will stay low for ever – but I think paying back existing debt at rates this low compares really well with taking on additional debt, no matter what the return.

Could not get one and would not want one, double win.

54 for me. No doubt I will then need to spend the equivalent amount each month on fixing it up again ready for retirement…..replace kitchen/ boiler/ carpets / Windows etc etc …….its never ending 😀

Overpaid massively on both. First one paid off at 32 and will have the second paid at 52. After that it is a ten year savings frenzy to retirement.

Before the end of the year hopefully (just accepted an offer). I’m 32.

MrsTHtobe though has another 10 years to go on hers, and have a sneaking suspicion she’s going to want me to contribute to buying another, bigger, nicer area, expensiver one, which will require a massivesmall joint one

I reckon I’ll die before my mortgage is finished 😆
Just about to sell up and start on the mortgage bandwagon all over again 🙄

Divorce meant I started again at 45, I now have a massive mortgage but a happy home. I have a plan, with over-payments, to pay it off by 62. I have to re-mortgage in Jan, just as interest rates are set to rise- dagnabbit.

Reckon we could have it shelved before I’m 50. If we weren’t trying to buy an exorbitantly expensive pile of rubble and a hole in the ground. :/

Out of interest, when folk say they are “massively overpaying” to clear their mortgage, what sort of figures are we talking?
Maybe as a percentage of the required payment.

I’m interested in where people feel the balance is between having money now and investing for the future.

i.e. our required payment is £1050 a month, until recently we were paying £1700 which is a ~62% overpayment. We’ve dropped down to £1200 this year (~14%) as we had some other expenses to cover. I don’t feel like that’s really enough to make a real difference though so I’m keen to bump it back up again when we can.

Out of interest, when folk say they are “massively overpaying” to clear their mortgage, what sort of figures are we talking?

Every penny that we can.

Never had one, we just saved while living in rented accomodation then bought.

5 years and 1 month to go, I shall be 50. To cheer me up the other week I got a letter telling me my PEP/ISA thing is on track to pay of £39k of the remaining £44k, I will only rely on that on the last day, I cant be sure the stock market isn’t going to go up and down like a TdF mountain stage before then.

I did the overpaying thing for about 5 years when the going was good wages wise, £550 rather than £350 pm, since then redundancy and £10k drop in wages a year has knocked that back but as others have said if you have the extra sometimes its worth using it to live a little no give to a bank to site on, horses for courses I reckon.

We would love to do the downsizing thing and go cheaper and have a few quid to support the pension years.

I count myself very lucky to have bought at the bottom of a boom, wage stagnation and prices these days make it very difficult for younger folks, buying a house is everything but governments seem to have made it policy that you get on this mythical bloody ladder straight after birth.

I’m interested in where people feel the balance is between having money now and investing for the future.

Almost exactly the same amount as you. The balance for me is that I still have money to spare/waste each month.

should be 63 . But now we have moved to France , we could sell the uk house instead of renting it and be mortgage free ( house in france has got no mortgage ) .

No fixed balance point for me.
Basically most months current account balance grows a little. If i want to buy something i buy it, but sometimes i don’t, and in that case i make an extra months mortgage payment.
Basically, I don’t think overpaying should hinder my standard of living, but i’d rather get it paid than either hoard the cash or blow it on a needless extravagant purchase.
Over 4yrs i’ve overpaid 5-10% of the initial value.

as above no hard and fast rules. generally let it build up in our joint account and if no major expenses come up jsut before mortgage anniversary ill make an overpayment to take advantage of the 10% rule on our mortgage. drip feeding it monthly is penalised as only payments of more than 1000 come off the balance at any one time – the rest they save till just before anniversary anyway – better off earning interest in my account till that point imo.

Paid mine off maybe 8 years ago at 38 ish……

Effectively paid it off few years back now, 39 I think. But technically still have it, just with a tiny amount and small monthly of a couple of quid. Keeps it ticking over until I finally get around to moving again, then I can remortgage in theory easier than starting from scratch. Then I won’t be paying it off until 70+ probably as will get something bigger and will need three times the mortgage size I originally had just to do that, depending what I buy. Though might then be downsizing or moving somewhere cheaper. Though reason for upsizing is mainly to accommodate bikes, so I can’t see myself downsizing! 😀

Will be 56, now 41. Still on original mortgage from 12 years and 3 houses ago. Just added a bit to the amount and term at each move. £1300pm was easy to pay a few years back but now feels a bit tight with kids and starting my own business.
Was last of friends to buy a house, most of them have smaller mortgages and bigger houses but still feel fortunate to get on the ladder before it was pulled up, as it has for many.

Currently trying to buy first house, so I imagine it will be a 30 or 35 year term from the new year

My Bro who lives in Sevenoaks is never going to pay his off until he sells the house. His rationale is the mortgage is quite small (to him maybe!) compared to the value of the house. So he’s very relaxed about essentially renting an appreciating asset.

I’m not like that. Always said we’d pay ours off before I was 50. Beat it by a whole month 😉 That was four months ago and even tho it wasn’t much, it’s good to know we have no debts and an asset we can sell at some point. When we do – once I’ve thrown the kids out – I just can’t see us buying another one. I’d be happy renting and spending the kids inheritance 🙂

They’ll have to resurrect me to pay mine off. Didn’t get mortgage until I was 35. I’m 40 now with a second child due in November.

58. I’m 23 now. Hopefully a lot earlier when I can start over payments however I feel I’ll outgrow this house anyway.

Edukator – Reformed Troll
Never had one, we just saved while living in rented accomodation then bought.

Location obviously plays a massive factor in this discussion, living down south our mortgages are massive, certainly compared to something like the scenario above.

Sometimes I think of selling up and buying for <£100k outright.

Where to go though for that money

After my business degree I decided that what you do with your money is more important than how much you earn – calculated risks.

Borrowed as much as I could on an interest only mortgage and bought my first house pretty soon after starting work (in IT) in Hampshire in ’96 which turned out to be the bottom of the market so good timing; I also started investing. Moved after a couple of years to a decentish bit of West London, maxing out my mortgage again, to a house that needed work; saved up some cash after a few years and sorted it out plus extension. Mortgage paid off in ’03 when I was 32. Got married and moved out to Surrey in ’07 to a family home in a commuter village with a new mortgage. Paid that off in ’14 at 43. Meanwhile my investments have been growing and I could get a more expensive place but sitting tight during these uncertain times.

So my original thought on dealing with money seems to have worked out well but benefited greatly from significant property rises which is unlikely to happen again anytime soon – annoyingly my old London house is now worth as much as my current house so lost out there.

@mudshark pointless regretting that. Hindsight is always 20/20 no?

Good on you for having a clear plan financially for the future. I wish more people had that clarity.