Windfall - Pay mortgage or invest in property 31 March 2014 at 9:46AM in Mortgage-free wannabe 5 replies 961 views

Hairysmiley

Hi All,
I'm lucky enough to be getting £160k from my father as an early inheritance gift.
So my current 2 options (there may be more?) are put it towards my mortgage of £177k (and about 16 years left) and become mortgage free quicker.

The other option is to buy a flat outright and use the rent money to pay off my mortgage as well.
This way even though I don't pay off my mortgage as quick as option 1 I'll still pay it off quicker than now and I'll always have the property.

My head says option 2 all the way but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Thanks,

HS

Jonbvn

What is your mortgage interest rate?

IMHO, putting it all into a BTL is perhaps too risky. However, what other savings and investments do you have?

LydiaJ

Hi Hairysmiley and welcome to MFW. :hello:

My advice would be to go and spend some time on the House buying, renting and selling board for a while. Read about all the various problems that inexperienced BTL landlords post about on there - difficulties with tenants, voids, that sort of thing. Read the advice they are given by the more seasoned landlords. Then think about whether that is really something you want to take on. The LLs over there are always posting stuff about "Having a BTL is running a business. You shouldn't be surprised that this is taking so much time/money etc."

At least if you pay off your own mortgage it won't cause you any extra work!

lee111s

I'd pay of my mortgage and have a bloody good life!

Prothet_of_Doom

£160K is a good leverage of deposit for buy to lets, and in parts of the country, you could use that as 4 or 5 deposits.

That's what I would do.

Hairysmiley

So I don't have any other massive investments apart from an okay pension and a couple of Isa's. The interest rate on my mortgage is 4.79%. Thanks to everyone who replied so far.