Mortgage Free in 10 Years - My MFW Diary

RenovationMan

Mortgage Free in 10 Years - My MFW Diary


My MFW aim is to completely pay off my mortgage in 10 years. We bought the house in May 2010 and have lived there 1 year already, so we have 9 years left to go!

We are also renovating the house as it's a 18th century listed building in need of a little TLC. We're performing a bit of a juggling act because we want to lower the mortgage but also make the house more energy efficient and nicer to live in. We're hoping to have all of the work carried out within the same 10 year period.

10 years is a long time (but then we have a very large mortgage and lot of renovations) so I will have smaller milestone challenges along the way. The first milestone started when I bought the house in May 2010 and it was started initially to help lower my mortgage Loan To Value (LTV) so that I could get a decent mortgage rate when my current mortgage period was up in 3 years. I decided that a 50% APR would be a good target to aim for because even if I missed a little bit, I would still have pretty much all mortgage products available to me to choose from.

RenovationMan

Mortgage Free in 10 Years Mini-Milestone Challenges:

Mini-Milestone #1 - My 3Yr 50% Equity Challenge!

This mini challenge was to overpay the mortgage to the point where we had a 50% LTV, i.e. we owned as much of the house as the mortgage lender! In order to be able to calculate the percentages we used the purchase price of the house as the valuation figure. I know it is unlikely to stay fixed over the 3 years as house prices fluctuate, but it's the valuation figure the mortgage company has and the challenge takes place during the mortgage period.

3Yr 50% Equity Challenge (May 2010 - June 2013)
Date.........Valuation.....Mortgage....Equity.......Equity %
May 2010...£450,000....£300,000....£150,000....33.33%
May 2011...£450,000....£270,000....£180,000....40.00%
May 2012...£----,---....£----,---....£----,---....--.--%
May 2013...£----,---....£----,---....£----,---....--.--%


Mini-Milestone #2 - ??????????????????????

RenovationMan

I've been doing the current mini-challenge for the past 18 months and things are going well and I have paid off £50k of mortgage debt and we have carried out the following renovations to the property:

Created 1 bed apartment - Converted former stable block into a single storey apartment with kitchen, living room, bedroom and en-suite. Removed un-insulated concrete floor and replaced with breathable insulated LECA/Pummice Limecrete floor with 4 zone underfloor heating, battened walls and filled with sheep wool insulation and covered with woodwool boards and plastered with lime/hemp. Renovated roof by replacing broken stone tiles, new breatheable felt and fitted 150mm Kingspan boards between and below the rafters, covered with woodwool board and plastered with lime/hemp. All was painted with Limewash. New fitted kitchen, fitted en-suite and fitted robes in bedroom. Heat exchanger ventilation fitted.

Main house reconditioned roof - Replaced broken stone slates, replaced non breathable roofing felt with breathable multi-foil insulaton felt (TLX Gold), 100mm Kingspan boards between and below rafters, fitted new guttering, built up chimney stack & filled with LECA to insulate the chimney liner.

Main house heating system - Heat bank cylinder attached to new condensing boiler and wood burning boiler stove, radiator pipes re-routed more efficiently and lagged.

originalmiscellany

Hi there RVNM! Great to have a thread from you here... I remember reading your original thread about your renovating of your house and being saddened by people not believing your size of mortgage or your overpayments to start with. However, I wish you well on your pursuits. As you know there are loads of people here who are so supportive and willing to encourage as you meet your targets. Where do you think you will be for May 2012?
I'll be subscribing to this and hope to hear lots of positive news from you.

RenovationMan

originalmiscellany wrote: »

Hi there RVNM! Great to have a thread from you here... I remember reading your original thread about your renovating of your house and being saddened by people not believing your size of mortgage or your overpayments to start with. However, I wish you well on your pursuits. As you know there are loads of people here who are so supportive and willing to encourage as you meet your targets. Where do you think you will be for May 2012?
I'll be subscribing to this and hope to hear lots of positive news from you.

Thanks originalmiscellany, thats very kind. I was a bit unnerved by some of the nasty comments and felt that I had put a little too much info 'out there'. However these people seem to have been warned off after I reported them to Abuse and so I'm free to continue with my blog. :beer:

I paid a further £3k off my mortgage today, which was the return from an investment I made in some 'penny shares'. I don't think my mortgage will go down much between now and May though as we are continuing with our renovations and it seems to suck the life out of our bank accounts. We do have a bond maturing in July 2012, so we should be able to make a significant OP around that time.

sweetdaisy

Good luck in your quest to become Mortgage Free .

gallygirl

I too remember reading your exploits Renovation Man, good luck

RenovationMan

Finally got my confirmation letter through from Santander for the latest £3k overpayment. I've reduced my monthly repayments by a mighty £6.35 per month! LOL

originalmiscellany

Great stuff. 6 pounds a month is not to be sniffed at - and your equity is constantly on the up Hope you have a restful Christmas break.

RenovationMan

originalmiscellany wrote: »

Great stuff. 6 pounds a month is not to be sniffed at - and your equity is constantly on the up Hope you have a restful Christmas break.

Thanks! I'm sure that I can find a use for that £6pm, though knowing me it'll just go straight onto the mortgage as part of the next overpayment.

Merry xmas to yourself and all the other MFWs!!

RenovationMan

Well its the start of a new year and the start of my next renovation challenge. We have a 5th bedroom that has been a junk room since the day we moved in but we've decided to sort it out and turn it into a proper bedroom for our eldest daughter.



So far all we have managed is to empty the room (and put all the junk into the attic and garage) and I started to chisel out all of the cement pointing in the stonework (see left wall in picture). The cement should never have gone into the wall as it stops the house from breathing through the mortar. I'll be repointing with a lime/sand mix once all of the cement is removed.

I'm also going to remove all of the plasterboard in the room and insulate the walls with wool to help retain heat better and to provide some soundproofing. The window may be replaced if I have the cash, but it's a solid oak window currently and not in bad condition. The window sill is stone slate and is cold to the touch, which is causing a 'cold bridge' and isn't great for our energy efficiency goals:



I'll be hoping to find a nice thick piece of reclaimed oak that I can shape into the window to make (hopefully) a great looking rustic window cill.