New Bigger Mortgage at 50

mysmeg

In 4 years we would have been mortgage free but knew this wouldn’t be our forever home so now decision needed on taking a 15 year term with higher payments or a more relaxed 20 year term and being able to live a little more. Have a 40%deposit and bamboozled my mortgages - should we port our standard rate balance with nationwide or look elsewhere.? We have steady jobs and should work into our 60s. Any advice would really be helpful as. A bit scared to be honest

AnotherJoe

If you take a 20 year term, you can always overpay to reduce the term to 15, but you have flexibility to that, if you take out a 15 you are stuck with that and cant do anything else unless you remortgage again and shoudl you get into financial difficulty, thats the point you dont wish to be trying to remortgage.

It also gives you more money to put into a pension, if either of you are higher rate taxpayers that will save you considerable sums compared to paying off the mortgage a bit faster.


And lastly, when there's only 5 years to go, the mortgage will be quite small, plus inflation will have reduced it as well, for example owing say £20k in 15 years time is equivalent to owing maybe £15k now.

enthusiasticsaver

Do you really want to be paying a mortgage at 70? I am not sure there is such a thing as a forever home and surely you would have moved into it much younger than 50? What does the new house give you that your current house doesn't have?

I think I would think long and hard about taking out a bigger mortgage at your age unless you enjoy work and are quite happy to work up until 65 or 70. My preference would be 15 years simply because you don't know if you are still going to want to work at 70 or you are happy to go into retiremen5 still with a mortgage. We went for mortgage free at 48 though and retirement at 58 and didn't move from the house we raised our family in. At some point we may downsize but people don't usually upsize in their fifties. Is it a more expensive area or bigger house you are going for?

Bimbly

I'm with Joe on this one.

I'm 49 and last year increased and extended my mortage to pay for refurbishments to the house and I am so much happier. To feel comfortable in my own home is such a nice feeling. My mortgage payments are larger, but not a burden.

I don't worry about the mortgage as I have a plan to pay. I've extended it to age 75, but I am putting money aside to pay it off before then. I could overpay now but with mortgage rates low, I'm putting the money elsewhere instead.

So go with 20 years and plan to overpay (or put money aside for that purpose) so you know your mortgage will be cleared. But also your repayments are not so oarge that if you need money for something else, it is there. At the end of the day, you can keep working or use pensions (a lump sum, maybe) to help with the mortgage.

I had people on here say I was foolish to spend money on my house when I could have been mortgage free earlier. But I say to them, and I say to you, that happiness is more important.

datlex

I have just taken out an 18 year mortgage at 45. Given retirement ages you could take one of similar length. What they looked at is how much want to pay to get it over as short a time as possible for me with out it being too expensive.

mysmeg

Thankyou Ver much and sorry for late acknowledgement. A lot to think about

mysmeg

Sorry for late acknowledgement appreciate advice here !!!55357;!!!56832;

Nebulous2

In our mid-fifties we're going the opposite way, making plans which will ultimately lead to downsizing.



I've never thought of a forever home. Our home was appropriate for bringing up children, but now that they've largely moved on our needs have changed. We're intending moving from a fairly expensive city to a cheaper market town, near where we both grew up.