Mortgage advice

[Shampoobaloo]

Hi, I'm after some advice if anyone can help! I'm looking to get my first mortgage and have been speaking to banks etc about figures. In my head, I would love to be mortgage free and am interested in overpayments etc. I was wondering what other people do? Is being mortgage free a stupid goal? Is it realistic? I know you can overpay certain amounts and am interested in the benefits of doing so.

Partly the reason is that my mortgage would be less than my rent so I am used to paying more and partly I don't want to be paying a mortgage forever! This is obviously my first mortgage and I would presumably move/hopefully buy a bigger house in the future. Would overpaying now help getting a bigger mortgage further down the line?

Sorry to waffle but I have so many questions!

Thanks!

Why not just take on your mortgage over a shorter term rather than over paying?

We went for a mortgage we were comfortable paying and now we're in a position to overpay.

It means we have a degree of flexibility when interest rates start to rise, and as we are looking to move in a few years the overpayments essentially go towards the deposit on a new house.

If you are bamboozled, talking to an independent financial advisor can really help work you through what levels of risk you are comfortable with and the options available.

Good luck its exciting times !

We have a 25 year term mortgage that allows unlimited overpayments.

The reason we choose not to lower the term was that we both work on fixed term projects. Touch wood, we've never had a gap between them, but the lower payments are manageable on one salary with the advantage of saving on interest through the overpayments.

Overpaying now will give you more equity in your current home when you come to remortgage/move.

The benefits of overpaying mean not only do you get rid of the mortgage quicker but you can save thousands in interest as well. If you want to see how much use the moneysupermarket overpayment calculator online and enter different monthly overpayment amounts to see how much you can save etc.

You need to factor in an increase in interest rates which is what we are doing. Our mortgage is still at a reasonable term so if interest rates do rise rapidly we can easily afford the payments but whilst they remain low we are overpaying as much as we can each month to reduce the term.

You also need to check how much you can overpay though as some mortgages will penalise you if you overpay by more than a certain amount.

If you talk to a good Independent Financial Advisor they can talk through all the options. For example, some mortgages don't allow over payments.

If you pm me I can recommend a broker.

Thanks for the advice. will have a look at the online calculators. I'm waiting to hear back from one bank withers specific figures and I think it will be about £100 less than I'm paying in rent so don't want that £100 to get wasted if that makes sense. One of the big things I will talk to the bank about is the implications of overpaying, I believe it's aprox 10% but will find out exactly. Thank you