Property Investing

According to statistics by Co-operative Bank Mortgages, 62% of the UK’s population wants to be mortgage free by the age of 50, and I honestly cannot blame them. Free from the obligation of having to pay hundreds of pounds every single month towards their property. To become mortgage free, you can finally focus on preparing for your retirement and offering yourself a better working lifestyle.

I personally would love to retire even earlier than that, and with my extensive range of property lets I am fairly confident that I will be able to achieve this before I am 35. However property investment isn’t for everyone, so the real question is: what other routes are available to you?

Looking at the Co-operative Bank Mortgages figures they revealed that:

• 31% planned to achieve this goal by overpaying on their mortgage every month and reducing the term of their mortgage. And this is a great idea considering the current economic climate and how low mortgage rates are. There is plenty of opportunity to overpay
• 21% planned to achieve this goal by taking advantage of low interest rate deals. Now this one is only good if your current mortgage term is coming to an end. To swap part way through can result in penalties and a lot of paperwork which can get messy if you don’t know what you are doing
• 13% planned to achieve this goal by utilising more of their disposable income. Similar to the one above, this technique is only useful if you are on a tracker deal or are coming to the end of your current mortgage deal, as you need to be on a lower mortgage rate in order to increase your disposable income.

Now out of these 3, I would have to say that the first one is definitely the most viable route. For instance, most banks will allow you to pay an additional 10% on your mortgage over the year without incurring a penalty. However that being said many leading lenders are now considering launching a range of mortgages which will enable you to make additional repayment of up to 50% of your entire mortgage.

Is there another route?

Like I mentioned above, property investment isn’t for everyone, but working solely on my own personal experience, buy to let property investment has enabled me to pay off huge chunks of my own mortgage – fast – whilst leaving my other salary free to offer me the luxuries of reduced working hours.

Take my scenario for example:

Each of my 11 property investments currently produces positive cash flows of between £350 and £980 a month, giving me an additional income of £6,018 (aside from my existing job).

Now aside from the fact that my tenants are essentially paying the entire costs of my property investments – bills, mortgage payments, council tax etc – they are also supplying me with the cash flow to pay off an extra 10% off my mortgage every single month.

See what I mean?! There truly is a diversity of ways to enable yourself to retire when you want to and at an age that fits your lifestyle. So give it a try and see if you too can retire when you want to…

Wendy xx