35 year mortgage?

[mothertobe789]

Hi just wondering peoples experiences on a 35 year mortgage? We are moving house, our house is currently under offer and the ones we are looking at means more than doubling the amount on our existing mortgage. Taking the mortgage out over 35 years really reduces the monthly payments, we would struggle if we took it out over less time to be honest.
I am 28 and Dh is 32. We have a 6 month old DD so will have alot of nursery fees over the next few years aswell.
The thought of taking out a mortgage over such a long time is quite daunting, do many people take it out over this long?
So confused as to what to do. Our current mortgage has 20 years left so it would mean adding 16 years on! It would be our forever home so do we just go for it in the hope we can reduce in the future. Or is it too long of a commitment.

Assuming you could afford a rise in interest rates or another reason to belt tighten such as a second DC, ld do it. I would also set aside a few pounds a month to overpay as the interest will begin to really reduce if you don't reduce the payments. Doesn't have to be much - as little as £15 a month will eventually reduce the term down from 35 years

We took ours out last year on a 35 year term so that DH could pay on his own if I was on Mat leave. We plan to pay it off well before the 35 years by overpaying, although know there will be years that won't be possible with childcare etc.

You might as well go for it... the government and the banks aren't going to be happy until they've turned everyone into lifelong obedient, compliant mortgage slave worker drones.

Go for it, if it you don’t need to move again. You can over pay and bring the term down in the future.

I also echo for you to go for it. Lots of things will change over the years & nothing is forever. Incomes usually increase over time & child costs fall once they are at school. You can always re-mortgage in the future, reduce the term then.

And I speak as a mortgage broker.

I guess it's a question of if this move is a necessity due to space/school/employment or a nice to have. Weigh up the key advantages of moving vs the consequences of a higher mortgage. At 28 you have time to pay it off but that probably means working well into your 60s. My mortgage would have originally finished when I turn 58, hopefully we'll be able to shorten that further too. The house hasn't much curb appeal but it's big enough for us for the rest of our lives and it's the thought of being able to slow down for retirement that I like.

Definitely.

The advice I got when buying was to take mortgage out over the longest period possible. Your circumstances will
Change over time and your ability to pay it will increase and therefore shorten your term.

We took a 35y mortgage out on our first house. We were 23 though so happy with a repayment age of 58. When we sold 10 years later it was really important that we not go over the 25 years term we had left on our next house. Eventually we will start over paying, but at the moment we have two small dc so need the extra cash.

I would view it as a 35 year mortgage for now. Money is hard when kids are pre school in particular but you may get to a point where you can overpay and target reducing the term. Or just sell and downsize in 20 years when you don't need so much space.

With house gives so high, you may not have any alternative but to consider a 35 yr mortgage, but make sure that you buy your perfect house for you. This may not be your dream house. Make overpayments when you can and ensure your can comfortably cover the repayments factoring in that interest rates may rise. Alot of op have said toddlers are expensive and so the burden of childcare costs will reduce and this is true, however it may not be as low as you would like, my kids are older and I now work 5 days in 7, we got rid of the childminder but with various clubs, extra curricular lessons, they now want adult meals in restaurants, any savings have absolutely been lost 😬

I wouldn't. Living and working to pay a mortgage for 35 years is a huge commitment. You may well be able to over pay but equally your circs may change and you are never able to do that. I would find a cheaper house to buy.

If you were renting rather than buying then you would still be expecting to pay rent in 35 years, so in that way it is not different. In reality though wages will go up, childcare will decrease and you can overpay. As it is your forever home there is less risk in terms of house prices and as long as you aren't stretching yourself too much if there was a rate rise I would go for it.

Just make sure they allow overpayments (typically up to 10% a year) so once your dc is at school you can overpay and shorten the term

I wouldn't have an issue with it. Presumably you'll remortgage in 2-5 years anyway and you can reduce your term then if you're in a position to do so.

Taking out a 35 year mortgage doesn't mean you have to take 35 years. It can make sense to have a long mortgage when the kids are young, you can over pay or remortgage when you have more cash. We took out our first mortgage on a 95% LTV crap interest rate and high childcare meant we went for the 35 year option, within 2 years we remortgaged to an 85% LTV mortgage with a 24 year term as the interest rate was so much better.

Thank you for replying everyone. I guess it just daunting to think that would take us to 63 and 67 years old but like you all say we can reduce in the future hopefully. I'd like to think in 35 years we'll be alot better off than we are now!

@mothertobe789

You probably won’t even be retired by then going on the current state of affairs.

Have a look at an overpayment calculator and fiddle with lump sums and regular payments and see how much you can knock off (even a small amount makes a difference to interest to pay)

Yes, take the 35y mortgage and then remortgage down once you have done paying nursery fees and have more disposable income.

Definitely do it, you can have the low payments now while you need them, then remortgage when you have more cash & reduce the term.

Ours is 30 years and it does scare me but we’re overpaying. Having the flex while you have to pay childcare will be helpful.

Ours is 40years next one will be 35 as that is the maximum now. The term doesn't really matter to us. We focus on making sure the monthly cost is affordable then do overpayments as and when

Is 30 yrs feasible? When we took out 35 yr mortgage it wasn't that much cheaper than 30 yrs but I was only 22 and we didn't earn loads, it was our first house and we had no idea how much our bills would be etc. The idea for us was that we would try and bring it down to 30 yrs after the 2 year term. We cldnt as the market crashed and basically our interest rate went down massively, we were in negative equity, so we were a bit stuck.

I'd go for 35 yrs and then try and reduce it when u renew ur mortgage. If that's not possible I'd really be looking at 30, 35yrs is soooo long!

I am 31, dh 34 and we have 38 yrs left on our mortgage I honestly dont lose sleep over it. For the first year we were overpaying by £170 a month. Then a year ago we had our 2nd DC and our childcare bills are £1245 a month so we haven't overpaid at all. However in Sept 2021 (!!!) Dc2 will get 30 free hours and we will be £700 a month better off and therefore can overpay again

Our mortgage advisor has always said
You can always overpay a longer mortgage, but you cant underpay a shorter mortgage

Circumstances change also. Massively.

If you take it over 35 years can you afford to overpay it, even by £50 or £100 a month? If we'd have continued to overpay our mortgage it would have been reduced from 40 years to 28.

We did 34 years. Four years later we're in a position to over pay but we weren't to begin with.

I have recently taken out a 40 year mortgage. I'm 23.. my son is 18 months and also paying huge nursery fees therefore I wanted my monthly repayments as low as possible, in the grand scheme of things yes I will be paying more back in interest but I don't plan on living there for 40 years I wish to move on.. going for the longer and cheaper (each month) mortgage is a great bonus for me allows me to live much easier than I would with a 25 year one! :)