Mortgage until 70 yrs old

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

Hi all
im 44 yrs. in the process of buying a new property and moving up the ladder. But it will mean at the moment I will have a mortgage until I’m 70 years old.

anyone else in the same boat? It’s the thought of starting again for 25 years - a bit depressing. But I am going to overpay so that we can reduce the term and pay off more quickly.

Make sure your overpayment are allowed in the deal you sign.

I'm 35 and have just signed up for a 35 year mortgage that will run until I'm almost 71. It's the only way I could afford the house I wanted. Figure as long as the monthly payments are manageable, I'll figure out the rest in the future! (overpaying/downsizing/payrise/inheritance/a lottery win)

Overpaying. Honesty, saves a fortune.

I'm not sure where you live but I personally would not have a mortgage until that age. I'm mortgage free now but I bought small properties and worked up the ladder. I could not have cared less that my friends had bigger houses in nice areas. I now have the big house in a nice area mortgage free.

Our mortgage is until DH is 67 but we knew we could overpay (endowment from my first mortgage maturing, childcare costs about to end). So it’s helpful in situations like that.

But do make sure you have good cover with life and critical illness insurance. And then DO overpay when you can.

Currently buying a new property (we could be mortage free in current property with savings we've accumulated) but the house doesn't work for us and we very much want to move. We are taking out a mortgage to run until age 70 also. However once we have completed the renovation works that we want to do, we will overpay each month to reduce the term, also we very much plan to downsize before we reach 70, so really don't see it as an issue.

We did this! Took out a 40 year mortgage at age 31.

We have already overpaid loads though so it should hopefully be paid off before age 60.

It does feel a bit weird but I don’t regret it. It is the only way we were able to buy a house.

My mortgage runs until 62- long enough! I'm 55 and now overpaying to get rid of it at 60.

I started a new £122k mortgage at 48. That felt bad enough but with overpayments and some hard work I've paid off 94k in 10 years. With luck I should be finished at 61.

Don't be disheartened. It will shrink soon enough.

I personally wouldn’t although it would be more manageable if there are two of you. Are you on your own or in a couple?

The short and simple of it is that very few overpay, they don’t know how to or it’s not easily accessible to them.

You should always overpay 10% of your minimum mortgage payment each month, that will equate to roughly 1 extra month of capital payments a year.

Over 10 years, that’s a huge amount when compounded.

We're in the same position - it's the only way we can even remotely afford to move up the ladder. We're going 50/50 repayment and interest-only as well.

BUT, we have insurance, DH has shares which should pay some of it off, there should be some inheritance (if that hasn't been gobbled up by care home fees) and we'll almost definitely have to sell to fund our pensions anyway, so that is our last resort (and perfectly acceptable to our lender as well apparently). And we intend to hammer down as much as we can, when we can.

I’m 43 and DH 39 snd we just took out a large 25 year mortgage. However, once we r done the works to our house (which we kept cash back for) and our nursery fees reduce from the current 1758 a month(!) to zero, we will have cash to overpay 10% without penalty and probs chunks here and there in between new fixing deals

we will also be downsizing when older so are trying not to worry about it too much. Plus we should get decent inheritance (though not banking on that for obvious reasons and know we can pay off without it).

Also, I have the ability to go back to what I was doing pre-kids if necessary which would double my salary overnight (and we live in a low tax jurisdiction so tax man wouldn’t be taking half of it!)

we thought about it pretty carefully before we took it out and did the sums, knowing we are currently at our most expensive point in time due to nursery fees (oh and I’m currently part time due to kids but will go back FT from sept 2023) and that there should be surplus from sept 2023 and even more from sept 2025 (we’ve fixed until April 2027 at 1.29%)

That said, the current shit hitting the fan in the economy is making us think we may put off getting our works done (they are not urgent) for a while - just so we’ve got a large cash buffer in case one of us loses our jobs.

the way we are viewing it is that we love our home and being at home so we’d rather pump our money into that than fancy cars/holidays (we drive crappy 2004 and 2009 cars)

as long as you’ve done the sums and planned as far as you can for contingencies, you should be ok

We moved when we were 40, and our 25 year mortgage would have taken us up to 65. Having two children to bring up, educate and support through university we never had enough money to overpay and as DH and I reached our late 50's we were both really sick and tired of our jobs and wanted to retire but the mortgage still needed paying. Fortunately for us We had a few bonuses, policies mature and a small inheritance which enabled us to pay off the remaining balance just before we were 60. If we could go back in time I'd certainly have taken the money over 20 years or paid off small amounts n the early years before money got so tight. It is really miserable when you are only working because you have to.

I took out a new mortgage when I was 38 to be finished paying around 67. I finished paying it this week at 54. I have been overpaying. It's a weight off my mind as I was panicking as still paying over 60.

Its nothing particularly to worry about - as long as you can afford the repayments and your pension will also cover the repayments. Historically the rate of inflation is around 2% a year so your current repayments will reduce in real terms (and given current inflation of 8%+ it will reduce much more) if your pay keeps up

I agree: over time the repayment and amount owed will diminish in real terms due to inflation

I always remember a conversation I had with my father when I was buying about 10 years ago - he was due to pay off the mortgage on their home which they had bought mid-80s. His mortgage payment was something like £200 a month which when they had taken it out was something like half his monthly income; by the end of the term he was still paying £200 but now this was less than a tenth of his income.

Surely inflation only works if wages increase. What we've had since 2009 is stagnant wages i.e. people paid less in real terms pricely because they got less than inflationary pay increases. I have no idea what high interest rates plus high inflation but stagnant wages mean.

I feel like this too. So many people outstretch themselves and invite really difficult challenges into their lives.

if you have a pension that provides a lump sum I think it’s reasonably common for people to plan clearing their remaining mortgage using that.

I took out a mortgage last year, aged 52 to 70, 18 years. In reality, using my 10% pa allowed overpayment, I'll have it all paid off by my late 50s.

The term doesn't matter, it's your ability to pay it off quickly that does. Would I actually want to be saddled with a mortgage up to 70, no.

We took on a new 25 year term when we moved last time, to make the repayments early on more affordable, which means it will run till I’m 67 (I’m older than DH) - but in fact, a few years in, we now overpay anyway, and I’ll get a lump sum on my pension at 60 which will pay it off. So there are ways to make sure that it doesn’t run till you’re 70.

Our mortgage goes up till we are 67. When the pandemic hit we were very glad to have a big house with room for us all to WFH, the idea of 5 of us being in our old house all trying to work or study gives me nightmares. We aren't overstretched and our mortgage interest is so low we haven't bothered overpaying, we invest our savings elsewhere where we can get a better return. We'll review that when our fixed rate term ends and we can always transfer a lump sum over if need be.

You should always overpay 10% of your minimum mortgage payment each month, that will equate to roughly 1 extra month of capital payments a year.

This is not true, it depends on how much interest you are charged and how that compares with other potential investments.

Yes - I took out a 25-year mortgage as a first-time buyer aged 43 in 2006. I didn't need to move but wanted somewhere better. I balanced the cost against the better quality of life.
If you're allowed to overpay you can end up with a small outgoing. I got a flexible one as I'm self-employed and am now paying less than £20 a month (it's not cost-effective to pay off the final balance).
It may help to think of it as a housing cost rather than a cumbersome loan hanging around for years.

You have to really keep on top of it to overpay - it's very easy to put it off to next month. We cleared the mortgage on our old house - had the standing order for the mortgage amount each month, but also had the mortgage account set up as a person to pay. We'd transfer a certain amount extra on payday which we felt was affordable. Then at the end of the month also transfer anything left over from current account. Some months that would only be £5 but it all adds up.