Thanks Brendan,
Very useful to get your thoughts re: building up a deposit versus paying down the capital. FYI, the interest rate with DCC (since May 2012) is only 3.2203% - and that's *including* their mortgage protection (2.75 + 0.4703).
NE on the apartment is approx 90K so it's a long road ahead!
I'm lucky enough to be in a permanent position in the public sector so my rainy day needs, if I've followed your reasoning elsewhere, are fairly minimal. Any spare cash has been going into a mixture of overpaying the mortgage but with the larger part going into saving accounts with the view to building up a deposit. I've also been starting to think about investing some of these funds due to the number of years we will be in the apartment before said deposit is needed, bar unexpected windfalls.
One annoyance is that I have to contact DCC every time I want to capitalise an overpayment; at the moment they are capitalising them on an annual basis after I apply in writing. It might make as much sense to channel everything into deposits and make annual lump-sum payments on the mortgage, as that is in essence what I'm doing now due to how DCC operate; I'm not getting the benefit of paying off the higher interest rate on a daily or monthly basis.
Thanks again!
Greg