Thank you for saying this . It ' s an ugly double standard . <| sep |> Average mortgage term is ~ 25 years , average age of first time buyers in the UK is 2530 , so if that ' s when you buy you ' ll be paid up by 5055 . Faster if you increase payments as your earnings rise . Generally though , as your earnings rise you don ' t pay off your existing mortgage faster you trade up to a bigger house , keeping your mortgage length about the same but paying more pm . Average life expectancy in the uk is 82 , so if you ' re MrMrs average then you ' ll have around 30 years mortgagefree . Saying that though , many people nowadays are using equity release schemes or remortgaging to help pay for their retirement . I can only imagine that trend will continue as state pensions are squeezed .