[Closed] How old when you pay off your mortgage?

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.

[quote=wrightyson ]**** paying off the mortgage. Mrs ws and I plus the kids now are partying hard still and paying off the mortgage as the contract requires. Bollox to overpaying and suffering now whilst we can still enjoy going out and doing/buying what we want when we want etc.

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 [i]quite[/i] 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 [s]massive[/s]small 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.

Current (first) house will be 39. 12 years left. Sooner if we put some overpayments in.

Though that will all no doubt change if/when we move.

My mortgage is meant to run until I'm about 55 ish, but we've an offset account that I stick all my tax money in, as well as overpaying by £500 or so a month, so the real answer is 'sometime before that'...

The mortgage on the surgery will be paid off in a similar timeframe...

I could probably make my money work 'harder' for me, and I could DEFINITELY save more now than I do, but I'm hoping that I'm striking the balance between 'enjoying life now' and 'saving for the future'...

DrP

A friend has just come into a large amount of money (a director of a business and his investment has just matured).

So he has paid off his mortgage and is keeping the house to rent out then bought a new (much bigger) house in cash. His wife is looking at Range Rovers and he's looking at a classic MG.

Envious? Me?

Mortgage free in a tiny two up two down.
May be small but I have no wish for anything bigger.
Currently not working due to deppression so just really glad the prospect of being homeless is not something I have to worry about, as mental illness can result in many others less lucky than me ending up on the streets.

Mortgage clear in early 60s for me. C'est la vie. Wasn't ready to buy before the boom, couldn't then afford anything until I'd saved a pile for deposit.

31 when I cleared mine so have been free for 7 years now. Have been in the same house for 15 years which helps. Considering moving now but will be house sale plus cash to avoid another mortgage.

Would have been mortgage free at 35 but the house wasn't big enough.

If the mortgage goes to term i'll be 60, but this thread has just caused me to set up a regular overpayment so I can make hay while the sun is shining on me at 1.19%

Why would you want to pay a mortgage off ??

It's free money.

In fact it's better than that.

would have been clear by now, but got divorced a couple of years ago. Now saving for a deposit to start the whole bloody fiasco again from scratch,

Why would you want to pay a mortgage off ??

Because then i wouldn't have to spend the best part of £1500 a month ! I could then spend it on nice things/toys.

If we don't move again I'll be Mid 40s, not sure exactly, I'm 34 now so not worth worrying about too much.

We'll hopefully move though, getting sick of being attached to a rental house with a seemingly revolving door. So it'll probably be mid 60s unless I win the Euromillions.

Why would you want to pay a mortgage off ??

Obvious really. No more mortgage payments.

Although ours just ran it’s course with no overpayments. So didn’t make any special effort other than a direct debit every month till they stopped taking it.

41 but occasionally think of relocating to London for work and that would mean a whopping great mortgage 🙁

Both mortgages paid off a month ago aged 61

Why would you want to pay a mortgage off ??
It's free money.

What's your thinking there Ro5ey?

The rates aren't too high at the moment but surely the joys of compound interest mean it is still pretty far from free money? Or do you mean something else?

I will be 67 when ours is paid off if we stay where we are but we plan on downsizing when our children leave home. We were within a year of paying off our last place (I would have been 47) when we decided we wanted more space for our two young girls as they grow up - going from a 2.5 bed end terrace with a tiny garden to a 4 bed detached with a big private garden, big-ish rooms, en-suite etc and the girls have two play houses, a huge climbing frame and trampoline (oh, and a 'teddy bear zip wire' at the moment too) yet there is still plenty of room.

I just see it as investing in nice family home as the children grow up rather than something I need to pay off quickly. At the end of the day the mortgage is only around 35% of the house value so if we wanted to, we could downsize tomorrow (just move a couple of streets away to where some smaller houses exist) and be mortgage free.

Due to a couple of unfortunate events, resulting in my missus inheriting some money & a house (she rents that out & some goes towards overpayments) we managed to put down 40% as a deposit, mortgage was due to be paid off when we were 60, but should be done nearer 50 - 38 now. We took smaller repayments as the rate was good and we like buying pointless crap and going on holiday - although we'll probably pay an additional 10% of the total on top of the every year in overpayments to get it paid sooner.

Re. overpayments - we both stick cash into the joint account every month which easily covers household bills etc, and agreed anything left over at the end of the month got fired into the mortgage - so I don't ever think about it really, I still have "my" money and she has "hers"... last year we easily maxed out the 10% limit due to a small inheritance, but this year there's a baby crawling around the place and the wife's on mat. leave for a year so the end date might be put back a bit now 😆

Was set to be 50 after moving in my mid 30s.

Recently remortgaged to do a pile of work to the house, so as of last month now looking at 65 with the monthly payments now doubled.

Thankfully still affordable but the Lotus Elise in the garage remains a distant dream....

I'm currently going through a re-mortgage to secure a rate in to the new year and through Brexit while the rates are low. If I stick to term then I will be 52 but I intend to overpay as much as possible as I can see us moving at some point and extending the mortgage back out again.

If I'm lucky I might get a bit of inheritance to help me along the way!

My thinking

Pay 1%, 2% or 5% on a mortgage.

Or pay money into a pension and you get 20%/40% without even trying.

How about taking advantage of gearing.

Mortgages allow you to buy much more of a asset than you'd able to buy with cash.

(someone/many will come along now and say... houses are homes and should not be assets ... and I may well agree with you.... But the rest of the WORLD doesn't. So im just playing the cards as they are dealt)

Good luck

Interesting Ro5ey. So what do you do? Interest-only mortgage and plough everything into a pension?

(I don't know what "gearing" is. Quite financially naive here)

so you employ that strategy and then lose your job age 42.

cant get into your mega pension fund

cant pay your debt.

lose the house ?

Diversification is key. i have personal investments and a company pension also - but i pay down the house as its a roof over my head and ensuring that cant be taken away lifts alot of pressure- plus i dont trust the government not to raid the pension pot before i retire.

@GrahamS if you're a higher rate taxpayer you get more bang for your buck by putting the money into a pension.

For example, say you overpay by £1000 a month. That is roughly £1400 if you contributed that into your pension instead. So your mortgage rate maybe 2.5% meaning you're losing £400 to overpay the mortgage which is a "poorer" investment.

At the same time, if your pension is 100% equities and there's a market crash then you could lose out. Depends on how much risk you can tolerate I guess.

At the same time, if the market crashes then we're all shafted anyway!

I borrowed at base rate plus 0.5% for 25 years. House is increasing at a rate if 5-8% a year. The interest only aspect allows for an impressive return regardless of capital repayments. Plus I make AVC's on my pension pot for eventual mortgage payment, and have a final salary pension to fall back on.

Putting the bank's money to work for a 4% return PA on a house I would struggle to repay otherwise, then move to a cheaper/smaller house/location upon retirement on guaranteed income. What's not to like?

If you own 100% of a house worth X, or 30% of a house worth 3X, and houses increase at 5% PA, which is the better long-term investment?

The answer is "it depends". What was the question again?

For starters
- What is long term for you? 5 years? 10 years?
- What's the purpose of the investment? A pension pot? Something you can liquidate for an inheritance?
- How important is liquidity at the end of your term? A house is a lot less liquid than stocks and shares or cash.

Ro5ey makes a good point. I've not thought of it that way before. One reason it makes more sense to overpay is if you're going to be mortgage free well before you can draw your pension down. Perhaps you want to be financially independent.

The prospect of paying off the mortgage early via larger repayments / regular overpayments & getting the burden off your shoulders does sound appealing to me, however at a push we could probably sell the wife's rental house, empty savings account & cash in everything else and pay it off just now, so maybe we're spreading the bets more than I/we realize.

so you employ that strategy and then lose your job age 42.

cant get into your mega pension fund

cant pay your debt.

lose the house ?

Similar impact though whether you have an interest only or a repayment mortgage. If anything they're better off as their repayments are lower. If the shit hits the fan and you sell up, you still get all the equity you had in the house, Ro5ey would just get deposit + growth, rather than deposit + growth + repayment.

It works as long as
a) your house when you buy it is worth less than 25% of your pension pot (or it still work, but only if your pension accrues more interest than the mortgage)
b) your pension doesn't crash (which would leave you with no house or pension).

The big advantage of paying the mortgage off in a more conventional way is whatever happens to the markets (stock or house prices), you always have a house irrespective of it's value.

Don't house prices have a correlation with the stock market anyway?

60 --- 5 years later than planned

Not paying early makes sense if you are on a low rate. I self built though and didn't have the choices available to buyers. Got stuck with 4.9%.
I overpaid massively over the past five years despite my accountant being unable to understand why I'd pay corp tax on earnings to pay off a mortgage instead of piling it into a pension.

As above, the pension pot may go up or down / get raided. Paying my mortgage off 17 years early saved me 60 odd K, guaranteed.

As much as the bare numbers though, just knowing it's not there to pay if one gets sick or whatever is great. I'm just not keen on debt.
Being self employed I worry a bit about earnings drying up through lack of work or illness.
£1500 or so left to go here. Just turned 41. No plans to get another.

Absolutely. Houses are not liquid its easy to say ill just sell but reality is You still need some where to stay.

divorce, starting again with a new family, plus a few years of foolishly not wanting to buy again whilst the rent was so cheap means ill now be 62 before its paid off :-/

44 and just about to remortgage (to sort out a crap endowment, pay off credit cards and fund some work on the house), so about 20 years from now...

Houses are not liquid its easy to say ill just sell but reality is You still need some where to stay.

41 now and was due to be mortgage free at 48. However, I'm writing this from my hospital bed with a broken back. Being self employed all bets are off now.

Bought our first house when a reasonable detached was a year's salary.

After sitting down with the FIL and working out how long it would take to pay it off *and* the mind-blowing cost of borrowing he kindly offered to loan me the balance. So the house was ours, I paid him every month instead of the building society and in a few years it was done. He never accepted a penny in interest.

That was early 90s and I've not had a mortgage since.

41 now and was due to be mortgage free at 48. However, I'm writing this from my hospital bed with a broken back. Being self employed all bets are off now.

Best of luck sir.

But if you invest in a bigger property you do have the option to downsize.

assuming you both have a decent equity to release for this smaller house and theres a buoyant property market to ensure your property is somewhat liquid. Pretty big assumptions to rely on in a time of need and also assumes the wherewithal as things fall apart to make that decision.

Anyway - hope its not too serious maycontainnuts(as not serious as a broken back can be) hears for a speedy recovery !

assuming you both have a decent equity to release for this smaller house and theres a buoyant property market

Mortgage free for the last 18 months .. I'm currently 38 years old. It's all through hard work and spending sensibly too.