What age did you pay off home mortgage?

[bettymae1121]

DH and I are 38 and 34, respectively now. If we don't pay any extra to the mortgage we'll have it paid off when I'm 59 and DH is 63. We won't pay any extra to it until we have paid off our CC debt (should be done with that July '12 ) a fully funded emergency account (1 years minimum living expenses) and have maxed out contributions to our Roths. We'll also have to save to replace my aging '98 Saturn and plan on having kids, which from what I understand suck down incredible amounts of money!

Even if we pay it off on the 30 year schedule, it will still be paid off by the time we're ready to retire which is all I'm really looking for. The total payment (including taxes and insurance) is less than 25% of our current net income and with no other debt and a lot of other savings goals, I just don't feel the need to accelerate the payments. I will say that if we ever move or just refinance, we'll look at a 15 year loan. I want to be sure it's paid off before we retire.

 

[mafibisha]

Gosh, we're slow!

I think it depends on where you decide to put your money and where you are in your life, too. DH and I are both 41 and we'll have the house paid off in 8 years. But we only bought it 8 years ago and with 3 kids, 2 dogs and elderly family in the area (who require some time/care), paying off the house hasn't been our priority.

Rather, well-funded retirement funds, college savings, and general savings (and putting aside money for Disney every year!) has been our priority instead. We have a bi-weekly payment on the house and we toss some extra principal at it every year but that's it.

We've got a low interest rate and we're happy with our decisions.

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DH and I are 38 and 34, respectively now. If we don't pay any extra to the mortgage we'll have it paid off when I'm 59 and DH is 63. We won't pay any extra to it until we have paid off our CC debt (should be done with that July '12 ) a fully funded emergency account (1 years minimum living expenses) and have maxed out contributions to our Roths. We'll also have to save to replace my aging '98 Saturn and plan on having kids, which from what I understand suck down incredible amounts of money!

Even if we pay it off on the 30 year schedule, it will still be paid off by the time we're ready to retire which is all I'm really looking for. The total payment (including taxes and insurance) is less than 25% of our current net income and with no other debt and a lot of other savings goals, I just don't feel the need to accelerate the payments. I will say that if we ever move or just refinance, we'll look at a 15 year loan. I want to be sure it's paid off before we retire.

Glad to read these two (honest) replies! When I read the first few posts I felt terrible as we will be 110 before ours are paid off! LOL

However, we too have well funded retirements, kids' college funds AND we too are choosing to *live* during these wonderful child raising years that are speeding by so quickly. And that includes traveling with them, including some WDW trips too!

 

[MrsPete]

We took out a 30-year mortgage but paid it on a 15-year schedule (I remember my high school math teacher making us repeat, "I want a simple interest loan with no pre-payment penalty.").

We paid off the house when I was just short of 40.

We were able to do this for two reasons: 1) We paid extra every single month. Just skipping one meal out -- just $30 or $50 -- is money that goes straight to the principle, and that's what decreases your balance. 2) We didn't upgrade to a more expensive house. We did move to a larger house, but it wasn't really a step up on the fancy-expensive scale. Most of our friends live in nicer houses than we do, but we have cash in the bank for our kids to go to college. Priorities.

Yes, we always had an emergency fund. And we always put money into our 401Ks. We weren't so set on paying off the house that nothing else mattered. We were much more balanced in our approach. Now we have a much larger emergency fund, and we channel more into our investments -- and we still have more money for things we want to do.

Other than two long maternity leaves, yes, we both worked while we were doing that. Now that our kids are teens, I can look back and say that I'm satisfied with the choices we made.

After the kids are out of college, we do intend to build a retirement home for ourselves. We want it to be built just the way we want it. Because we'll be selling our current house (in an expensive area) and building a smaller house on land we already own, I think we'll be able to do this without debt. Maybe I'm deluding myself on that front, but it'll be years 'til I know for sure.

 

[MrsPete]

For us, we couldn't figure out why we should borrow money for something when we could just save for it. We were pretty poor when we married 22 years ago and just became used to living on much less than we earned. DH and I are in our early 40s now.

Yes, there's a cost to borrowing for a mortgage, but there's also a cost to renting. For decades, the fact has been that while you were renting, the cost of the houses around you was going up . . . so although your savings account might be growing, so is the cost of the house you want to buy.

Military people are probably the stereotypical non-house buyers. Because y'all move around so much, it isn't practical to buy. You'd never recoup your closing costs, nor would you stay long enough to see the value of your house increase.

So while this path was undoubtably right for you, it isn't necessarily right for everyone.

However, we too have well funded retirements, kids' college funds AND we too are choosing to *live* during these wonderful child raising years that are speeding by so quickly. And that includes traveling with them, including some WDW trips too

Beyond being able to meet the basics, living well while your children are young has little to do with how much you spend.

 

[crisi]

39. Yes we had emergency savings, saved for retirement.

How we did it - we got caught in the dot com boom and made a lot more money five years after buying our house than we did when we got the original mortgage. Instead of "moving up" like a lot of people in our situation did, we kept the house we had and paid it off. Yes, we both worked - although that also meant that we had five years of daycare.

We just paid cash for a second home - but decided to take out a mortgage on our first home to not drain our investments. Mortgage is at 4%, and I can do better than that on dividend stocks.

 

[Colleen27]

We bought our current home free & clear when I was 30, but we still have a mortgage on the old house (now a rental) that won't be paid off until we can sell, which should be next year or the following at the very latest. Our renter is interested in buying, so it is just a matter of him focusing on improving his credit score and saving a down payment to be sure he can get financing.

i'm curious-those that have paid off their mortgages early or are working towards it, did you or do you have "emergency" savings in place if a major expense comes your way or a catestrophic event occurs that severly reduces or completly eliminates your income?

We didn't start out that way, but we do now. At first, paying off the house early was the primary focus, and the plan was to pay off our 30 year loan over 13 years so that we'd be done with mortgage payments before our oldest starts college. We had an emergency fund, but it was more along the lines of preparing for emergency expenses (major car repair, roof leaking, etc) than preparing to live without income for any length of time. But then DH decided to start his own business, at which point I started really budgeting, cutting out extras and waste like eating out, so that we could build up enough savings to live off of for an extended time.

Just curious - for those of you who paid your mortgage in your 30's, did both of you work? I've been a SAHM mom for the past 13 years and thought we would be doing well with it paid off by the time we are 45 but I'm definitely beat here!

I'm a SAHM and have been for most of our marriage, but we have the advantage of living in a place where homes are very inexpensive. The house we bought at the peak of the market cost us 99K, and the one we bought free and clear cost 25K. Both foreclosures, both fixer-uppers that were livable but outdated, both in small towns with good schools. Most people never have the opportunity we had, to buy a nice home in a great neighborhood (think Mayberry ) for a fraction of one year's income.

 

[Nayan]

Late 30's here when we paid it off. It was my late MIL's house and my husband inherited it. It had an outrageous interest for 30 years and we didn't want to make the bank rich, so we socked extra money on it every month, as much as we could. We lived very cheaply and didn't even get the a/c fixed until our son was ready to be born (pregnant, middle of July in FL with no a/c. I was a joy to be around!). It was so worth paying off early because now we have money for emergencies, to play with and to save for retirement.

 

[JennCa]

I was 38 and hubby was 36.

Our plan didn't going quite right because we wanted to have kids earlier and pay the house later, but the kids took much longer and were much more expensive than we planned but we did pay off the house earlier than we thought!

We got a mortgage of 152K when we were 26 and 24 and we both worked full time paying down a lot extra every month, almost double our mortage from age 27-31, this was the best decision we had ever made. The first year we owned our house we bought furntiture, did house repairs, etc and didn't pay anything extra that house. We wanted to live on one salary so when it was time to have kids we wouldn't feel the sting and so we paid all my salary to the house and extra saviings/investment. The plan was to have kids at 29 and stay at home and we wanted to make sure we could live on just his salary so that is what we did. That was when we both worked full time and then at 31 we had our first child and I decided to take a year off and work part time. I wasn't willing to give it up completely so I worked 2 days a week for a while, still paying extra on the house and more on kid expenses. Then, we had another child at 35 for me and that didn't work out, and I continued part time for a while after that, and then my last child was at 38 and I now work 1 day a week. If I stopped working after baby #1 the house still wouldn't be paid off, btu almost I think because the bulk was paid during my working years. Once you get the loan to a small amount it really helps watching the principal so go a lot each time.

Yes, while we bothed worked we could have had lots of extra money, but I knew with kids we would need it later and now things are so much better. We can save for retirement and college funds and even go on vacation some.

I thank my parents for this, they really pushed fiscal responsiblity to me so I had good role models. They didn't ever mention this exact plan, but it worked for us : )

Jenn

 

[ShesALovebug]

I was 28, DH was 26. But it was only due to an inheritance from DH Grandmother passing. If not for that we'd be paying well into our 40's I'm sure.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Our mortgage is not completely paid off but will be in May, 2012 if we continue paying at our current rate. DH will be 47 and I will be 43.

like the op i'll preface this question by saying that if it's too personal feel free to not answer.

i'm curious-those that have paid off their mortgages early or are working towards it, did you or do you have "emergency" savings in place if a major expense comes your way or a catestrophic event occurs that severly reduces or completly eliminates your income?

i ask this because i had one of those events occur wherein i became ill causing my income to end (and despite having ltd insurance, it can take up to 6 months to receive the first payment), and my husband had to take extensive unpaid leave to care for me. in that situation even if the home we owned at the time had been paid for in full it would not have been an assett we could have drawn from. with no form of income we would not qualify for a home equity line of credit. the housing market was strong then, so selling would have been an option, but i look at what the housing market it like in most of the u.s. today and despite someone's best efforts they might not be able to sell their home.

i guess what i'm wondering is weather the "norm" with this kind of plan is to first fully fund a savings account, and then work towards the goal-or-is the idea that the paid in full home is regarded as the primary goal.

We're a one income family and have an emergency fund equal to one year's salary. Said EF got us through a layoff (with the help of unemployment insurance) and some pretty rough patches. Without it, I wouldn't be throwing all of our extra $$ at the mortgage, because the "what-ifs" would keep me up at night.

 

[WheelCEO]

24, paid cash

 

[MissBritt]

Assuming we can keep making the payments we are currently making (1.5 times the amount due each month), we will have it paid off when I am 40 and DH is 45 (15 years from now).

 

[Kitzka]

A PP asked whether DH and I both work and the answer is yes. We bought a home much cheaper than we 'qualified' for. We use Dh's entire salary to pay towards the mortgage. I make about 1.5 times what DH makes. my salary goes towards the bills, retirement (outside of company 401ks), college, emergency fund etc. We live very tightly and don't spend much on extras.

But i am excited to have the mortgage paid off soon so that we can do a major remodel with the money in a few years!

Lara

 

[dvcgirl]

We were fortunate because we were able to pay cash for our first home...we were in our late 20s, and have done that with each home that we've purchased (we moved three times).

At the time (late 90s), DH was swimming in stock options and so we used half of our net worth at the time to buy that home....and it was a good move as the house doubled in value in just four years.

We use that extra money purely for retirement savings....which is where all of our savings goes.

 

[NotUrsula]

I don't remember exactly, but I believe that it was the yr. that the oldest started school; we would have been about 40. We had a 30-yr. fixed mortgage on a home that we bought for $79K in 1993. We socked a lot of extra money at it, and paid it off in 12 years. We didn't have much of an emergency fund back when we first bought it, but we did have very solid insurance policies which would have covered most big-ticket disasters. By the time it was paid off the emergency fund was fully in place.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

The actual mortgage isn't much but the taxes of $9,900.00 a year I'd like give up.

 

[jmpellet]

I think a lot of factors come into play here, especially location. Living anywhere where the cost of living is high can make it difficult to do. I watch a lot of HGTV and I'm amazed at some of the prices for homes in New Jersey. Plus the taxes to boot -- it's crazy.

We are in MA (hour outside Boston) and our house will be paid for next year when we will be 42. Purchased/built in 1998 and based on zillow.com worth just under 400k. Not that zillow is very accurate. Our taxes are just over 4k/year. I have been putting the max into my 403b (like 401k) for many years now and hubby stayed home with kids for about 6 years. Since returning to work, we have put basically his whole pay toward the house.

 

[dumbodame]

I was VERY lucky to grow up in a time when home-buying was SO much easier than it is now.

I bought my first house when I was 18 and paid it off when I was 23.

I bought a lake house when I was 22 and paid it off when I was 28.

 

[LBKB]

We just paid it off 3 months ago at the age of 45.

 

[Buckeye Princess]

We bought our current home with cash when DH was 23 and I was 25. (just married) We have been saving and investing like crazy since then and are planning to move to a new city when DH graduates this spring. At that time we will also be paying cash for our next home. I buy all of my children's clothing second hand, plan our meals carefully around sales, we don't go out to movies or to eat, etc.