Do you see mortgage as a debt or a do you see it as just another bill?

[burpsburp]

I was talking to a friend recently and she was aghast that we were overpaying the mortgage to reduce it as much as we can and hopefully be mortgage free sooner than not. Our payments aren't ridiculously high as some others' on MN but we aren't high earners and have a very modest income so it's a decent chunk to us.

She perceives her own mortgage as a bill lik rent etc and eventually it will finish at the end be of the term which is so mant years ahead that it's not worth stressing over now. She'd rather spend the money on whatever now and enjoy life right now and doesn't see it as a debt. Whereas I've always seen a mortgage as a debt. A bloody massive one at that and one I want to get rid off. I do understand where she is coming from but even by paying a little bit extra each month, I can see the years slowly going down. She thinks I'm being mad and I'll be dead before I've even paid it off and it wouldn't have been worth it. I see her point.

Does anyone else see it as a massive burden like I do or just another bill like utilities etc and part of daily living costs?

Generally a good debt but still glad my mortgage days are over.

I see it as a debt. We overpay significantly every month so we can clear it well before the full term of the mortgage. I honestly don't mind if I could get more by investing the money elsewhere, I want this debt paid off.

Ok looks like a lot of people see it as a bill. I think I am in the minority of really wanting to get rid of it. We have only been paying it off seriously the last 4 years and hopefully will be done in 2. It's been hard and we've really cut back massively. I'm sure it will be a complete anti climax when I make that last payment but I will sigh a sigh of relief.

I definitely see it as debt. I overpay whenever possible too. I bloody love the overpayment calculator.

Op I don't think it will be an underwhelming feeling at all.

We overpay, not to the extent that we can't enjoy life. At the minute it looks like it will finish when we finish paying school fees. I don't think it will be underwhelming at all. It's a lovely level of security to have.

It's a debt albeit - right now - one with very low interest rates. If you've got spare cash you'd be better off investing into something with a higher rate of return than the interest your mortgage is costing you.

I think people still attach a lot of emotion to the idea of "debt". In reality it's just a question of maths, risk and whether you want to invest it or enjoy it, as to where the best place your extra cash is.

I'm always surprised on mn if anyone has any spare cash & asks for advice about what to do with it, at least 50% of posters spring to "pay off your mortgage!" when in reality that's often the least financially sensible option if you have a stable job and consider the overall return.

I see mine more as a bill and with a young child and another on the way, we would rather enjoy life than pay extra on the morgage

It’s both to me and whilst I’d rather just pay the regular amount, DH has always been fixated on paying off the mortgage as quickly as possible so any unexpected lump sums tend to go on it but I don’t think we have actively overpaid since having children.

It's been hard and we've really cut back massively. I'm sure it will be a complete anti climax when I make that last payment but I will sigh a sigh of relief.

I don’t think it will be an anti climax at all! I’d get a bottle of champagne.

Probably more as a bill. I'm in my late 40s and we have a decent chunk of equity...I see the mortgage as the premium we pay to live in a bigger/nicer house than we probably need, we could buy a much smaller one outright if we weren't too fussy. It won't be paid off until I'm 67, but I doubt we will be here then, its more likely we will have sold up and downsized at some point. We have some debts we are paying down, once those are gone its likely I'll start some overpayments just to bring the balance down a bit quicker.

It's not a debt or a bill. It's an investment in the best performing asset on the market, real estate. Paying off your mortgage early is a dumb financial move.

I see it as a debt.

It comes up on my online banking just under my credit card.

I overpay and have the whole time we've had it. We don't have a lot of spare money but I would really like it to be paid off.

I like comparing the amount of interest in the current month to the amount of interest in the last month that had the same amount of days. Today I checked and it had come down £6 since March.

Of course it's a debt but it's also an investment. We massively increased our mortgage in our late 40s and without overpayment we'll be paying it until we retire. But that makes sense really, our income will drop at retirement but no longer paying a mortgage will cushion that drop. We choose to invest our excess cash in other ways each month that give a better return than paying off the mortgage. But we are lucky, we have a very high income (the MN favourite 6 figures) and live in a deprived part of the country. When we bought this house the building society told us they would lend us double the amount we wanted to borrow. But we have a 4 bedroomed house with 2 sitting rooms and 3 bathrooms in the best part of town so why would we borrow more?

I do think MN is obsessed with paying off the mortgage quickly. Better to put your money in S&S and if interest rates do increase rapidly then there is still the option to pay a big lump sum into your mortgage if needed. But I've been told interest rates are at a historic low for the last 20 years and yet they kept dropping so I'm really not bothered by my mortgage, we could half it tomorrow with our S&S ISAs if need be.

I would be interested to know where people are investing their money that gives a better return than the interest saved by overpaying mortgage. My mortgage interest rate is 1.99% and I can't find any savings accounts above 1%, and that's with a lot of restrictions.

It's not the same as credit card debt. You have the house. If you need to clear the mortgage you sell the house.
I see it more as a bill

It was a debt and I overpaid it as much as I could. I paid it off about six yrs ago (I’m 60 now) and I enjoy not being indebted to a mortgage company. It is very freeing, and I assure you, it’s worth it.

We've had quite a bit of debt in the past so no, I don't see the mortgage the same way. The debt worried me. A lot. I had a strict plan to get out of debt. We paid things off in a snowball method. Paid off the max we could. Had no spare money. We don't think of the mortgage the same way. It ticks along, we don't overpay even though we could pay off a big chunk now, say 1/3 of it. I prefer having that money in the bank. We need the money now more than in the future, the kids are little, the house needs work, future me will worry about the mortgage, or it'll just tick down on its own.

I think it is somewhere between the two.
I wouldn't never do anything nice for myself or deprive myself of any treats but if you look at how much money you save in total even by paying it off 3 or 4 years early, it is quite phenomenal.

I took out my first mortgage when the interest rates were about 14%, so each time the rate dropped, we used to keep the payment at the level we'd already been managing.
So yes, I saw our mortgage as a debt, and yes, to me, it makes sense to overpay when you can.
It is a lovely feeling when you have paid it off.

Bit of both. If you have spare money that you don't have a particular plan for then the best way of investing it is by overpaying your mortgage. I can see no reason to plough every last penny into it though and make life difficult for yourself. It's not that type of debt.

Just a bill

Somewhere between the two. Until it’s paid off I do see it as a bind abs I think there must be so much freedom for those who have paid it off. But, I wouldn’t prioritise overpaying over investing. I think a balance feels sensible. I’ve seen some people become almost obsessed by paying it off at the expense of enjoying life.

It depends I wouldn't and dont overpay currently as to do so would affect my quality of life and my kids are young so I sould prefer to use my disposable income for holidays and days out ect. In time I have 15 years left I will have more disposable income after Nursery fees end ect and then at that point I will either overpay or buy a decent car. Both of ours are old bangers that we constantly have to chuck money at here and there.

@OneRingToRuleThemAll we bought young like you, but when prices were ridiculously low. We live in Yorkshire for context. We bought our first home as a repossessed renovation project for the same price you’d pay for a nice car these days and paid a lot into it and were mortgage free by 27. We will be moving this year but the house is now worth considerably more and we have good savings so will only need a mortgage of around 50k for what will hopefully be our forever home.
Out of our group of friends, there are 4 couples including us that bought young & cheap and are all mortgage free before 30. We all left sixth form, got full time jobs and our husbands all own their own businesses in various building trades.
The couples who went to university and didn’t work full time until a few years later have only bought in the last few years and have £150k+ mortgages.
I would stick my neck out and say they all earn less too.
It does make you wonder whether extra study is always the best route. Having said that, I don’t even have 1% hope that we would ever see property prices as low as they were when we bought.

To answer the OP- it’s a debt.