Author: Paula Marriss
Simple fact number one: The average mortgage term if longer than most jail sentences. If you take out a 25 year mortgage, even on an interest rate of around 6%, you are still going to be paying nearly the same as your original loan in interest so it's little wonder that people are always dreaming of ways to pay off their mortgage early.
But the question is, is it possible? Can you really expect to be free of your mortgage earlier than its full term without winning the lottery? Well, the simple answer is yes. You need to pick the right mortgage for a start. Shop around and find a mortgage that allows, and even offers benefits for early payments against your loan.
Once you have a mortgage in place where you are rewarded for making early payments the next thing you're going to need to work out is where the extra money is going to come from. This can be daunting because often people look at where they can acquire large sums to make big dents in the mortgage as early as possible.
It doesn't have to be that dramatic though; any additional payment above your standard monthly rate is going to help, so let's start by thinking much smaller than anything as dramatic as a lottery win.
Look at your monthly expenses and see where you're spending on things that you don't really need, or would be prepared to live without for 2 or 3 years if you knew your mortgage would be paid at the end of it.
Let's take for example Satellite TV. If you were to take about £30 a month and put it against your mortgage instead you would save about £19,000 over the full term of a standard 25 year mortgage. So that's a pretty big saving right there. Now, about that lottery ticket... Why not invest the extra money in something where you'll definitely win?
Simple fact number two: Your home is the largest purchase you'll ever make. Bearing this in mind it's a strange quirk of human nature that while we will shop around to save money on tins of beans in the supermarket, we're much less likely to shop around to get the best deal on our mortgages.
With a mortgage you can often save thousands by shopping around and moving your mortgage to a lender offering a better deal. You can do this many times over the course of the mortgage if you're careful not to get tied in to one provider and should take advantage of the offers that are available.
The mortgage lenders know that we're unlikely to move our mortgages around much so offer some very impressive incentives to acquire new business on the basis that most people will never switch again. Use this to your advantage and move your mortgage whenever there's a better deal on the table somewhere else, and your current loan agreement allows it.
In this area it really can be worth getting some sound financial advice as the savings on offer can be really very significant. Speak to your financial advisor about this regularly and you could well be paying off your mortgage a lot sooner than you would have ever thought possible.
About the author: Paula Marriss is a financial advisor and editorial contributor at The Money Zone. For more information on personal finance visit http://www.money-zone.net/
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