As you know I have become fairly knowledgeable about property buying recently. I go to all the meetings with estate agents and brokers, and I just curl up under a chair – listen and learn! What I have picked up is that Mum keeps our own mortgage as low as possible – she believes if you are going to pay the interest on mortgages they should be taken out on an appreciating asset. Mortgages are one thing but she doesn’t have a lot of love for secured loans, apparently people take them out to buy things like cars and then later on they find they can’t make the repayments and their home is in danger of repossession. It must be true because we saw quiet a few repo homes in our search.