In this episode, we will learn about the reality of how tricky mortgages can be by hearing the story of Jinesh, an ex Goldman Sachs banker. Jinesh hates debt. He hates debt so much that the reason he left investment banking is to launch Sprive, a mobile app to help homeowners pay off their mortgages faster and become debt free. In this blog post we will learn more about Mortgages

If you haven’t taken out a mortgage before then you might not know but the process is long and tedious. There are lots of questions; two hour, three hour appointments; lots of online Jinesh was thinking in this day and age, does it need to take that long? Jinesh thinks there’s a lot more room, especially with technology that we have at our disposal to make the process a lot more streamlined. He launched Sprive to help tackle this problem.

Jinesh’s mortgage experience

Jinesh thinks the biggest thing you can do if you want to pay less interest when getting a mortgage is to put down a bigger deposit. It’s a real balance because you buy a home, but the costs don’t stop there. There’s other fees that you need to pay. When Jinesh was asked what he  preferred when he had a mortgage, He said he preferred getting conflicting mortgages. Jinesh liked the flexibility of knowing what’s going to happen in five years time.

Jinesh remembered that when he was making mortgage overpayments, he didn’t know how much interest he was saving.

“I didn’t really know if I was on track to pay off my mortgage eight years earlier, nine years earlier, 10 years earlier, all I knew is that I’m doing something to, uh, you know, to achieve a goal.” For lenders, the longer the contract the more money they make so it’s important to also acknowledge that. Roughly one in five people accept the first mortgage offer that they see. Spending an extra hour of your time or two hours of your time just doing a bit more research and educating yourself  could save you around 2000 to 4,000 pounds.

Through learning from his own mistakes, Jinesh is now aiming to help others with their mortgages. Sprive is still yet to be launched but the current database shows that users will be on track to pay off their mortgage 8 years earlier by using the platform.

Jinesh is in his mid thirties and has no mortgage. This means he has the next 20 to 30 years to take risks and build wealth. He mentioned that if he had a mortgage and monthly commitments, then it’d be a lot harder for him to take risks and see what he could accomplish.

Most times, what prevents people from doing what they really want from life is just the need for financial security and financial status. And when you know that you don’t have a mortgage and you just have cut your biggest monthly expense, it frees up so many possibilities.

Sometimes being rich means having a lot of money but it can also mean being able to do what you want in life, which is very different.

“If I loved money, I probably wouldn’t have taken the risk and left Goldman Sachs because I was running on a healthy amount of income without working as hard as I am now.” Jinesh says.

When it comes to launching a startup and building something from the ground up, it is tough and you don’t earn anything for it. The likelihood of it failing is also quite high and most startups do ultimately fail. So for Jinesh, the primary driver isn’t money but to be challenged and see what he can build.

If you want to check out more on the topic of mortgages and being a founder, check out the episode here!