Does your mortgage freak you out ?

[MrDarcysMa]

We are 1 year into a 270k mortgage (25 year term as we are fairly old) I check it online every now and then and man it freaks me out as someone who's never had a lot of debt!

Started overpaying a little to reduce interest and we'd pay it off a whole 2.5 years earlier so obviously we'll increase that as much as we can as and when. Does anybody else get the heebie jeebies when they think about their mortgage ?

I've had a mortgage for over 20 years so I'm on the other side, all exited to see it dwindling. Like you, we have no other debt.

Our £70k mortgage payments were well over 25% of our take home income 20 years ago, Now they are less than 10% and we have £28k to go.
My DD is in the process of getting a £240k mortgage, that terrified me until I realised it’s less than a 3x multiple of their income. Ours was 5x.

Yes

Yep!

Not currently as we have downsized but my old mortgage did. It was part of the reason we moved as I didn't like the feeling of insecurity. That is a total personal hang up of mine from childhood though and it would have all been fine as DH and I are still in the same jobs and doing fine.

Yes!

Slightly yes, but not too badly as it'a not a very high mortgage. Did did take it out over a 40 year term though 😳 which I feel a bit silly about now, but we overpay slightly which according to the mortgage calculator will knock 9 years off the term.

What is REALLY freaking me out now is the amount of money it will cost to get it how we want. We need to get a new boiler, new internal doors, carpet and decorate all the rooms (only 2 have been done) and rip the bathroom out and start again. Its depresssing when I think how long it will take to save and do it bit by bit, and that I will have to put up with an aquamarine bathroom suite with pink wallpapered walls and green carpet 😔

Not really, I looked at rentals the other day and it was double our mortgage. THAT freaks me out.

Yes a bit, ours is a similar size. We have about 50% equity though which helps. And I make regular overpayments with standing order and also random ad hoc ones. It feels good knowing I am shrinking it even if it is small amounts sometimes

Agree the biggest shock was realising that it would cost more to rent a 3 bed terrace round the corner than it does to pay the mortgage on our 5 bed detached house!

Renting should be so much better regulated !

Definitely. Despite overpaying ours is still going to take many many years to pay off. Still prefer it to renting though.

We are just taking out our first mortgage and to be honest it doesn’t freak me out at all as at least we will be paying towards our own asset rather than paying the mortgage of the landlord and for them to get the benefit of the asset!
We have been renting this house for 12 years so paid £90k on rent which would have been much better paying off our own mortgage. Thankfully after being gifted a deposit we can finally buy.

It does if I think about it too long

We bought in London so it feels a bit like Monopoly money in that sense

@BrieAndChilli I think that is the right approach. Suddenly you are chipping away at a debt so that the property increasingly becomes an asset. Whereas rent is just building an asset for someone else.

No because I don’t think of it as a debt, we have to live somewhere. I think of it almost like the electricity direct debit, an Inevitable monthly expense. (Oddly though I have been mortgage free as I owned by first flat due to inheritance, I didn’t feel more secure than I do now with a mortgage as it happens)

@pitterpatterrain

It does if I think about it too long

We bought in London so it feels a bit like Monopoly money in that sense

Ha, same here were in a pricey town in the south east hence taking so long to save up a deposit. I feel like if we'd managed to buy in late 20s we'd have only had 15 years left and that would feel waaaaay less daunting. We intend to sell up and move somewhere cheaper eventually so hopefully won't literally be stuck here paying it off till we're 60 but even still - I gulp when I think about it!

Yes it does. I met my husband quite late on and we then went on to have a child so we decided to mortgage ourselves with very comfortable affordability to get the dream home the actual balance does make me gawk a bit but its a lifestyle choice and one in the future when we don't need to space and lovely garden we can downsize from if we want to. So yes and no. It is a big number but a very calculated decision as life is very short!

No. I don’t even think of it as debt.

Not at all, we are 10 years into a 25 year mortgage and remortgaged for a new drive and windows 2 years ago. The total mortgage is now well under 50% of the value of the house. We aren’t overpaying and won’t - life is for living while our kids are young and we’re saving all covid excess for when holidays etc can resume, the mortgage can take care of itself and there’s every chance we will inherit before the 15 year term ends. It’s far more important to us that our kids get to travel a bit, go to the theatre etc than paying off the mortgage a few years earlier.

We borrowed more than that and hated the idea! For the first two years we were barely able to over pay but since then our earnings went up and soon our childcare costs will go down substantially. We’ve massively accelerated how much we overpay by. If you can avoid lifestyle creep as your disposable income (hopefully) increases, you should be able to start paying off bigger chunks a bit further down the line.

Yes !

25 year term as we are fairly old
Isn’t this the normal term still, @MrDarcysMa?
It’s what I had, what all my friends have had and what my daughter (early 20s) has.

I desperately want my gone by the time I'm 60.
However I'm 57 and have 6 years left to go. It terrifies me, even though compared to many on here, its tiny

Nah. I can see an end. Albeit 27 years away. And one day we'll start over paying to bring that down. I'll be mortgage free before retirement. That's fine by me. Wasted so much money on 10 years renting.

No.
I don’t even count it as debt. It’s just my basic housing expense and since it’s not rent I get more stability and the hope that it will work out as an investment.

I can remember my mother being freaked out when we bought our current home 20 years ago. She just kept saying, but it’s 1/8th of a million do you not think you should go for something smaller.

We now wish we’d gone for something bigger and pushed ourselves more. It never freaked me out as it was affordable and we were young.

A friend in their early 40s has just taken out their first mortgage. I think that would freak me out a bit thinking I’d be paying it off until I retired.