Irish cottage journey to (4!!) mortgage freedom

hildosaver

Hello again,

This should be a good week as I hope to make another £500 overpayment on my old house which will bring it under £90,000 for the first time - seeing the 9 turn into an 8 should be great!

Still 2-3 months away from trying to remortgage that house but this still feels like a mini-milestone for us.

We had a great weekend away to a campsite near a stunning beach up the north coast of Northern Ireland and I have returned looking like a lobster lol but much fun was had for not much cash spent.

DW's birthday tommorrow and I have booked us into a great restaurant which will cost me a bit but it's her birthday! Also our 4th wedding anniversary is next week also though we have an agreement that anniversaries are no more than £50 value so hopefully shouldn't impact too much.

Continuing to overpay our home £100 a month and am really looking forward to increasing this dramatically (to £600 at least) once we remortgage my old house.

Hope you all are enjoying the weather (at least it's fabulous here anyway).

hildosaver

Another overpayment made this month - hoping to have a chat with mortgage advisor today to see if I can remortgage my old home to a BTL mortgage, reduce the term by a few years and decrease the interest rate. Fingers crossed it's do-able and will potentially mean my old house starts to pay for itself after several years of me forking out more than was coming in from rent.

Will be a big step forward for me if it works out - also means I will be able to focus more on our own home re: overpayments.

Big trip planned next month to New York - our first foreign holiday in a couple of years so we are really looking forward to it (it's an early 40th birthday) - so far have managed to get tickets to the Carl Frampton fight in Brooklyn and I hear Aretha Franklin is playing on the Saturday night so we hope to get tickets to see her also - if you get the chance to see a true legend perform then you can't not do it!

Even though it's going to cost a lot I don't see us having another big holiday for several years so we may as well make the most of this one - lifes too short as they say.

We also have appointment with Consultant next month when we may find out if IVF is an option for us - so a lot to look forward to (and feel nervous about).

hildosaver

Another £500 OP on my old house bringing the mortgage down to around £88000 - I've applied for a remortgage to BTL with Santander - this will be interest only at 2.49% (my current mortgage is residential repayment at 4.49%) so my required payments will potentially go from £520 p/m down to £187 p/m.

What I plan to do (if it goes through ok) is to match what the rate would have been for a repayment mortgage (£477 roughly) and then OP on top of that with a target of paying down £6000 per year off the capital - that would be an OP of £500 or £687 in total per month. Also gives me the added reassurance that if my tenant ever moves out the void period costs would be much reduced.

I'm currently OPing £500 on top of my mortgage of £520 so around £1020 in total p/m - this pays off roughly £650-700 capital p/m.

I could take the difference between my current £1020 and my new (hopefully) £687 (£333) and use that to boost my OP on our home (currently OPing £100 p/m).

So my plan would be as follows:

My old home - pay £687 p/m (£500 OP included) which pays off £6000 in capital per year. (mortgage currently £88800 roughly - we receive £450 p/m rent in this property which includes management fees).

Our home - pay £1209 (£579 + £450 OP) which should pay off roughly £9600-10200 capital per year (mortgage currently around £121000).

So that would be £1896 p/m in total minus £450 rent = £1446 which is around £150 more p/m than we are paying now in total but I'm due an incremental pay rise this month which will cover half of that so I think it's do-able.

When I also consider our inheritance property which is currently rented for £350 p/m and has a mortgage of £96 p/m that also gives us a bit of wriggle room.

Fingers crossed it works out!!

try_harder

Good luck with your journey , i will follow with interest

hildosaver

Hello again,

Was away to New York for our first foreign holiday in several years - had an amazing trip and went to see Carl Frampton beat Leo Santa Cruz in the boxing, ended up in a bar with Colin Murray and had a total blast.

Back to reality now though and my cash levels have been hit this month but I've still managed a £300 overpayment on my old house and a £100 overpayment on our home.

We have hit a major snag in my attempt at remortgaging my old home to a BTL mortgage as the valuation of the house was £100k as opposed to the £120k I'd hoped. We are appealling this and fingers crossed we can get it closer to our valuation but if that doesnt happen we will have to continue to overpay at the current levels for at least another year before trying again.

Disappointing if that is the case but I guess it doesnt make a huge difference as we would have been overpaying anyway but instead of focusing on our own home we will need to divert most cash towards overpaying my old house which is not what I wanted.

If the valuation stays at 100k then we need to get the mortgage down to 75k (currently around 88k) so still a lot of work to do!

I guess at times like this it helps to think back to the start of the journey and be thankful for the achievements we have made so far - if we hadnt overpayed my old mortgage would be sitting at around 114k.

cookie9

Well done on the OPs especially after a trip to NY!
Fingers crossed the re-valuation comes in a bit higher.

hildosaver

Have had to put the re-mortgage plans on hold, probably for at least a year until I can overpay the mortgage down by another £10,000. Bit annoying but I have come to terms with it - at least I got notification from my bank that they have reduced my SVR by 0.25% - not a lot but still very welcome. My mortgage on my old home is now £499 which feels like a landmark as we receive £500 in rent!


Had to miss overpayments in the past month as I was waiting on a large rates bill to come out today (£1026). This has now been paid and I have been able to make another £500 overpayment today so we are back on track again.


Think we are into the £87,000's now so all being well by the end of this year we should owe around £86000 on my old home - I looked at my spreadsheet last night and I reckon if I had not started overpaying a few years ago I would still owe around £113,000 and would still be in negative equity. Not only that my mortgage payments each month would be over £600 per month instead of the £499 I now pay!


Just proves how much of a difference overpayments can make in a relatively short time - 4 years to be exact! Hoping that in another 4 years time I'll be in an even better position!

Poppy3008

Good work! I have always overpaid on my mortgage - even if was just £50 a month. Eventually when I remortgaged the difference it made was fantastic. I need to OP more for the remortgage next year to get a better LTV.

K23

Hi hildosaver,

I was searching the forum as I am also looking to pay off a BTL and our own mortgage, as well as saving for retirement. I am 42 and am also developing a 10 year plan.

Its been said before, but as a priority I would build up a reserve fund in account(s) to which you can get relatively quick access. My DW and I have a Cash ISA with a couple months backup funds, and a S&S ISA with more.

We are one third into a 2 year fixed period, and when we have available funds we will OP the main mortgage to get it below the 75% threshhold for a better deal when we remortgage at the end of the 2 year term. Thats our desposible money of the next year. After that... not decided yet, but will likely invest 50% of our desposible income in ISA S&S, and use the other 50% to OP. I like the idea of getting both mortages paid off by the time I am 50 as I hate debt, and it could be possible if we focused on it, but I also understand that if the market conditions are right than investing is better value for money. So we will do both.

Also, you mentioned fertility investigations. If it ends up that IVF is required, and your NHS trust does not offer free cycles be aware that they are £5-15K a go. So if you think that could be neccessary, then my advice would be not to OP, but save... My DW and I are planning our 7th IVF attempt in Dec.

Good luck.

hildosaver

Thanks for your message - we appear to be in a similar situation.


I am fortunate enough to have a decent savings pot due to an inheritence in the past year I now have almost £15,000 in an ISA and am adding £200 per month as often as I am able to.


We are at the 'waiting for appointment with Consultant' phase of the infertility clinic and hopefully will meet them in the next month. Not sure of the timeframe after that - myself and my DW have discussed this and if the waiting list is a year or more then we will go private.


We probably have enough saved to maybe have 2 goes at it but if that is unsuccessful then I reckon that will be the end of it as we are running out of time and do not have the financial clout available to afford any more than that.