Comments on: The {Great} Mortgage Payoff: Progress

By: Diane

Diane — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:16:11 +0000

Hi Laura,
I’m a first-time reader. I “found” you today via the wonderful SIF. I love your site and we share similar dreams of creating better lives for ourselves than the traditional corporate path offers.
Please forgive me if the things I’m about to ask have been covered in the past. I scanned your archives, but didn’t see the answers. I’m an American and am not familiar with the UK mortgage lending system, so the answers may be obvious to your UK fans.
Why are you trying to pay off a house that you intend to sell soon?
Wouldn’t you rather have the funds within your control so you can realize your dreams now?
For example, cash in hand could pay for several lovely home scouting holidays to Portugal, your mortgage holder usually won’t.
I dream of doing something very similar, but I would never prepay my mortgage. Instead, I’m working on accruing as much CASH as possible. Money that I can control and use – right now – and not have to wait until I’ve sold my house.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I’d love to know more about your plans. I promise to dutifully read through every post thoroughly this weekend.

By: Alice at Simply The Nest

Alice at Simply The Nest — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:14:23 +0000

I think renting for a few months while you search for your dream (yellow) home is a good plan. I know what you mean about going back to renting after years of home ownership – the thought of having to ask permission to hang a picture on the wall! – but I would imagine being there in person for six months will make it far easier for you to find and buy the right place. If the rental schemes in Portugal are anything like England, you can probably find somewhere with a six-month minimum rental period followed by month-by-month rolling, which would give you a nice target date plus some flexibility.

I also love the B&B idea – we’re looking to do something similar in France, so we’ll need to make sure we buy somewhere with enough space to enable this.
.-= Alice at Simply The Nest´s last blog ..Blog It Forward – What Inspires Me? =-.

By: Amy aka ForDGRedial

Amy aka ForDGRedial — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:19:05 +0000

For me this is the eternal question in my head. At the moment we rent because we have no deposit. Our rent is just over £1,000 a month. But are we right to, long-term, want to buy? I think given we’d need to pay about £5-10k in solicitor fees etc we would have to choose a house that we would live in for over 2yrs for it to make sense…

Amy x
.-= Amy aka ForDGRedial´s last blog ..Project 10 Pan – updated again =-.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:14:17 +0000

I can't advise on the renting versus owning problem but maybe the answer will present itself when the time comes if you don't worry about it too much. .-= Teresa´s last blog ..Dewi Sant! =-.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:48:25 +0000

Someone round the corner from me has just painted their house that exact same colour – it looks a bit wrong on a 17th century cottage, though ….
.-= Caroline´s last blog ..Where In The World Wednesday: Torrevieja, Spain =-.