I personally would avoid anything house-related for this year or even next year, simply because the housing market is in a complete mess over what will happen. There is a chance of you buying a house and because of unemployment, social distancing, business administrations and so on, that houses may not sell, which then leads to big discounting.
You might get a house, spend £10K doing it up for sale, and then making a £15K loss on it.
You have to remember that not only are no houses selling in the UK, but people wanting to sell will be getting keen to move on and sell them, and estate agents are going to need immediate commissions to survive, so there is going to be a lot of pressure to sell, sell, sell, and if the buyer market is not really there as people are not wanting to invest when there are dangers of second waves of COVID-19 and other risks (plus the memory of struggling financially during Lockdown), then estate agents are going to price lower and push home sellers to drop prices, to get the market moving again.
Rental is slightly different but still risky. I believe that rentals will rise as more and more people need to rent rather than buy due to all the Coronavirus risks, as well as more unemployment, big job security issues with a lot of industries, and the lower amount of mortgages being signed off due to banks loaded with bailout debts and suspended debt repayments.
As demand rises for rental, rental prices may increase, but if house prices drop in value, you may end up losing as much money in the value of the house as you are making each month from the profit margins of the rental. In other worse, buy a house for £100K, have a 40K mortgage, make £500/month rent but lose some of that in regular letting costs. And then the housing market collapses and 20% discounts. That is a £80K house value on a £40K mortgage, so you need to keep renting that house for at least 5+ years or more to make any form of profit from it.
Of course, house prices may not drop much, mortgage rates may not rise if the banks don't increase interest rates, etc, but you have to ask yourself, is it worth risking all that money and ending up a few years down the line with only £40K of the £60K left over?
If it were me, I would just pay off the mortgage with around £30-£40K of it, leaving a nestegg in the bank for a rainy day. With a lower mortgage repayment you could put that extra cash straight back into the savings, work for another 5 years or so, and then retire long before you are 50, with a nice amount of savings, a bigger pension pot, and a mortgage so low or even paid off you have no major expense.
