Congratulations to Frugal Zeitgeist for paying off her NY apartment. She managed to do it in 6 years, 7 months and 3 days with no huge financial windfalls. She took the route of sacrificing a few things along the way and applying everything she could towards the mortgage. I noticed that she refinanced a couple years in to a 15 year 5.125% mortgage which also helped. As I read through her posts it was obvious to me that she has learned the art of living below her means and sticking to her personal commitments.
CONGRATULATIONS!!
I also hope to pay off our mortgage but I’m doing it a little bit differently. I chose to buy a second property and built a house on it. By paying a good price up front, doing a lot of the work myself, and paying cash as we went, I have built up a sizeable amount of equity in it. If all goes well, within 5 years I should be able to sell it and use the cash to pay off our primary mortgage. That would mean we will have paid this mortgage off in 10 years, which isn’t quite as impressive as the Frugal Zeitgeist, but since this isn’t a competition, I guess it really doesn’t matter. :)
Do you want to pay off your mortgage early?
(Thanks to MadameX for pointing me to the blog)
Yes, we are probably in a recession and yes it might last another year. However, we know from the past, the economy will rebound and we will see years of bull markets. Isn’t it true that it would be more wise to invest the money you are using to pay off your mortgage into the market as the prices are low right now and *could* make an average 8% return in the next 5 years (of course, I don’t know this, but if you look at the past, the same trends always repeat themselves). We can bet the average return in the next 5 years will be more than the average interest rate on a 30-year loan.
I can recall you wrote a post about this but you don’t seem convince it’s the right way to go. By paying off your mortgage so soon, you also lose on the tax incentives.
I am no expert but I can see how deferring paying off your mortgage can be really advantageous especially now that it’s cheap to get in the stock market.
On the other hand, I understand people don’t want to have debt and wish they could get rid of it ASAP. But one has to look at the present conditions and what could happen in the next 5 years. Also, they are probably other circumstances that come into play such as personal reasons, etc…my 0.02c
Money_Wise,
All good points. I’ll be honest. I tend to lean towards paying down the mortgage but I’m also investing pretty heavily in the market. If I knew the 5 year return on my money in the market would be 8 or 9%, I’d probably be best to invest there and not pay down any mortgage debt. On the other hand, one of the big reasons that I’d like to pay off the mortgage is because it would open up a whole new set of lifestyle options for me. If I want to quit my corporate job, I could do it much more easily. If I knew that I could gain a higher return on the money in the next 5 years, I’d be smart to invest the money, sell it in 5 years and pay off the mortgage and keep the difference. Since I don’t know what the market will do in the next 5 years, it seems reasonable to pay the mortgage down instead.
It really has more to do with the options I’ll have if I pay off the mortgage more than anything else.
To answer your question — yes, I’d like to pay off my mortgage early, but not too early. Why? I just purchased my house this year and I have a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 5.875%. I feel over the next 30 years, I’ll earn more than 5.875% in other investments, but at the same time, I’d like to pay off some of the mortgage early to earn that guaranteed 5.875%. So maybe I’ll pay it off in 20-25 years instead of 30, and I’ll also make regular contributions into my portfolio of Vanguard index funds. I like diversification. Btw, I’m 26 and I plan on retiring when I’m 50, so paying off the house a little early coincides w/my early retirement plans.
Hey, thanks for the press! Hazzard, even though the how of early payoff is different, I think you and I think very similarly about they why. Your strategy looks sound; very best of luck on your journey.
Wow major props to Frugal Zeitgeist for paying all that off in under 7 years! That’s incredible most people can’t even do it in 30 because they end up refinancing and taking their payed off equity for cash. And Hazzard – good luck on your second property project… don’t worry the economy will kick back up and be going full speed ahead probably when you sell that in 5 or so years.
Good post, I hope your plan to pay off mortgage can help any body to make clearance of his/her mortgage. Thanks for sharing it.
Congrats frugal zeitgest! I wish I was where your at. Unfortunately I have several more years to go. Congrats on your achievements.
I want to pay off my mortgage early. My entire focus right now is to focus paying off all of my loans and saving the rest for retirement. Unfortunately it is a balancing act between the two.
Over the long term the real estate market outperforms the stock market. If you are going to invest in the market, get REITs, real estate investment trusts.
Frugal Zeitgeist is good in managing his finances and living within his means. This is a good example on how to mange mortgages at the greater benefit.