It is a good investment to pay off your mortgage early. When there is high inflation as we had in the 70s and 80s, borrowing can make sense as inflation reduces the value of debt. Conversely, when inflation is low, the debt remains the same.
Inflation is fairly low at the moment, so it is unlikely that large wages increases will get your debt any lower. In addition, the old tax incentives to keep hold of your mortgage no longer exist. MIRAS (Mortgage Interest Relief at Source) was reduced and reduced until finally done away with in 2001.
It is useful to overpay your mortgage. If you took out a £100,000 mortgage over a 25 year loan period, and an interest of 6%, then paying over the top by £100 a month would end up saving you £27,039.37 and reduce the loan period by six years. That would be handy!
Some lenders build in traps. For example, with some you can only overpay by a minimum amount. If you pay less then the lenders keep the money for themselves until the end of its financial year. If you do pay more than the minimum then your interest will be recalculated the next month.
Other lenders offer flexible or offset mortgages which calculate the interest on a daily basis. If you overpay on one of these you can get rid of your mortgage even faster. A lot of high street lenders have flexible features, but many have minimum or maximum overpayment amounts.
You will need to be careful about charges if you overpay, especially if you are on a fixed or discounted rate. In these cases there may be a redemption penalty to pay, and the penalty period can be longer than the deal period, so your overpayments may only help pay the redemption penalty.
Also, if you have credit card debts then pay those off first. They are costing you much more than your mortgage loan.
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