I just made my first mortgage overpayment.
We bought a 5 bed Victorian terraced house in the East Midlands in April 16 that has been badly neglected. It needs everything doing, it has been let out on a room by room basis and used as a rental machine. Now it is our family house (4 kids = one bedroom each!!).
So far I have replaced 2 Velux on the attic floor so the rain stays on the outside (very rotten frames)
Have had a full electrical rewire as the wiring was underneath the wallpaper - not boxed or chased in, just behind the wallpaper and skirting boards. Got a shiny certificate and everything now!
Decorated 4 kids bedrooms and put down new carpets in 3 of them
On the still to do list for this year
- new roof and insulation - nails degrading! Snow could cause a huge problem. Better get it sorted really.
- New shower and bathroom flooring - water damage, holes in floors (!) we should have moved the bath mats when we were viewing, they hid a lot of damage.
Plastering and decorating.
Nice carpets!!
Shelves!
That will be the two top floors done and I can kid myself I am 2/3rds of the way finished
Not attempting anything on the ground floor until 2017 - so no talk of log burners,knocking down walls, kitchens, damp proof courses, shower rooms or the like. That way lies madness, shhhhh, next year, at some point...
So, let's talk money.
House cost £160,000
Deposit was £41,315 (sale of previous nasty Manchester Foxhole)
Amount borrowed £118,685
We got a 1.94 % fixed for 2 years with Accord which rises to something ridiculous like 7% so remortgage time in 2018
We will repay £1.82 for every £1 borrowed over the 26.5 year life of the mortgage unless I overpay
I have just rung Accord, found out I can repay up to 10% of the total amount borrowed (each year without penalty), can make as many overpayments as I like per month without penalty, but cannot check on the balance online. I have to ring up a silly automated 0345 number that will tell me what the balance is! I will have to remember to ring it on my mobile so it is free.
Monthly Mortgage repayment £467.00

An overpayment of £200 a month would knock 10.5 years off the life of the mortgage.
We are planning on spending 5 years living here, and them moving elsewhere due to the nature of DH's work. So, lets see how much I can throw at this mortgage.