A little bit of good news

[doodab]

Congrats

[SarahL2012]

its a nice feeling knowing that the roof over your head is all yours. Unfortunately I'm about to move back down south (elderly parents) and - OUCH! - property prices anywhere near a decent train line to London are painful! Back to being a mortgage slave again after 5 years and its going to hurt.......

[d000hg]

Good-oh. I got a similar nice feeling paying off my student loan the other week but then I'm rather younger I'm now debt free EXCEPT for the mortgage.

[lukemg]

grinch mode on - Congratulations you are now in possession of a very illiquid asset which was the cheapest access to money you are ever likely to get. In addition, you are now likely to have used up your IHT allowance in one go. As a 'leveraged' bet on house priices rising, this was probably a good investment but not as an all eggs in one basket one.
Ok, thats a bit smug and for lots of people its a good idea but personally, I have no interest in paying mine off, although an offset does appeal. I look at all my assets and debts as a complete picture to try to keep the allocation appropriate.
This reminds me of the people at a bank I used to work at who had been buying and keeping shares in the bank for 20 years with no diversification, only to see it fall off a cliff (250k loss in one case....)

[NotAllThere]

Currently our mortgage is 64% of the house value (bank valuation - which in Switzerland is usually lower than the market price). It took some effort to persuade our bank manager that we really do think paying off a large amount of our mortgage is a good idea, but she's managed to wrap her head around it.

The "problem" with Swiss mortgages is tax relief on interest payments and tax on assets - neither of which encourage repayment, especially as you can pass the mortgage on to your kids.

[Mich the Tester]

Currently our mortgage is 64% of the house value (bank valuation - which in Switzerland is usually lower than the market price). It took some effort to persuade our bank manager that we really do think paying off a large amount of our mortgage is a good idea, but she's managed to wrap her head around it.

The "problem" with Swiss mortgages is tax relief on interest payments and tax on assets - neither of which encourage repayment, especially as you can pass the mortgage on to your kids.

Same in NL; there's mortgage interest tax relief and I'll lose that, but as I see it that's how the gummint encourage you to borrow a huge load of money and then work until you drop.

[MPwannadecentincome]

cool well done done Mr and Mrs Tester!

[lukemg]

they sponsor the prem league...

[expat]

Good work - I'm sure a merry christmas will be had at Teste Towers this year!

Are you sure you've got that spelling right?

[Mich the Tester]

Are you sure you've got that spelling right?

Yes. It's ye olde English spelling of 'Test'.