I recently read a post on MSN money about a coupe who were mortgage free by their mid-30s. Here are some of the tactics they used to pay off their mortgage quickly:
- Buy cheap! Their first house was a bungalow and was 50,000. Now – I live in the GTA, and there’s no way you’d get anything at all around here for that kind of money, but there are parts of the country where you could pick up something for the low 100,000s.
- Buy when the market is depressed.
- Do your own renovations. You have to have the skill and the willingness to do this. Mr Canuck Buck and I have paid people to do things for us – we do not have the skills or the willingness to do home renovations.
. We have done basic things (replace a toilet seal, paint a room) ourselves. - Put every penny you can spare towards the mortgage. Try to double up on payments, and put money down each year in a lump sum.
- Sell at a profit
- Put down as big a down payment as possible
Some of these things are more realistic than others. You can’t control the house prices where you live or how the market is. But you can control what you’re willing to spend, and how much extra you can try to put towards the mortgage. My husband and I followed some of these tips, which helped us pay off our first mortgage in less than 5 years.
What do you do or what would you do to help pay off your mortgage faster?
We are slowing down our mortgage payments right now since we plan on buying within the next year. However, once we get that, we will be paying it down quickly hopefully!
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Some great tips if you want to pay off the mortgage quick. We bought our current home for $265,000 with a nice down payment and have the cash to pay it in full 4 years later just by using some of the above tips. It also helps that we had no other debt as well so although there are awesome tips to pay off a mortgage each situation is different but it helps to not have alot of consumer debt hanging around. We just saved, budgeted (obvious lol) and made sure we spent less than we earned. Sure we don’t get all the fancy toys in life but now we will have choices and I’ll take that any day of the week over a new toy. Congrats on paying your home off so quick, good for you.
Canadianbudgetbinder recently posted..Becoming a Single Homeowner – Part 2 “Property/Down Payment”
As someone who lives in the GTA, I bought my first home for $125. I’m slowly approaching a mortgage that will be under six figures, but am on the fence whether to stay, go or rent and buy something else. Got some number crunching to do over the next year.
Great article and thanks for sharing!
Eddie recently posted..No Spend Days – A Different Way of Saving Money
Great tips! Especially the big down payment tip. That’s what I plan on doing.
Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses recently posted..Tips For Good Job Interviews – Common Mistakes To Avoid
We were lucky enough in that our house which we just purchased last year, is not a starter home. I love the neighbourhood, the location is great and both relatively close to our respective workplaces, so I can see ourselves living in the home for at least 5 years.
The bf or common law partner, whatever you want to call him, is amazingly handy. I keep on telling him he should start a side renovating business with his two other brothers. So we’ll pretty much be doing all our renos on our own and only paying for the materials. We also plan on doing a big lump sum every year to help pay off the mortgage. Our amortization is 25 years, but my goal is have the mortgage paid off in a less amount of time. (Hopefully 20?
MakintheBacon$ recently posted..Sleepless, but not in Seattle
Buying property when market is depressed makes it more likely to acquire profitable properties at a low price but selling it afterwards without knowing if the market is good or on recovery might not be the best way to get a profit out of it. Renting the properties could be a smart way until you are sure to make a good deal for the buyers. Thanks for the additional tips, I’ll keep them in mind!
Glad you all enjoyed the post – and sounds like everyone is making pretty good headway on their mortgages as well – nice to hear it!
oh those were the good ol’ days when a nice house in Toronto could be had for less than $200,000. If I had known how crazy things have got with the housing market, I would have purchased a few of those properties down in the beaches and other hot neighbourhoods! I can’t imagine how kids today are spending upwards of $600,000 on a bungalow with only 5% down. Keep up the great work.
Cheers, Pat
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