Mortgage anxiety!!

We were in a similar position to you at a similar time. Our mortgage was around 2/3 of our combined take home pay when we bought our previous house. We went on holiday between exchange and completion and while we were away, our interest rate went up to 18%. It only stayed that high for a very short time, but it was 16% for a long time and was never in single figures while we lived in the house. We cut back hugely on our food bill, had almost no social life for a couple of years and no holidays for about four years, but it was worth it. Every spare penny we had was spent on renovating the house, which took several years to finish, but we wanted our house and as you said, we managed.

Completely depends what your other outgoings are. If you've got car payments, loans, childcare costs etc then yes it sounds high. If not then £5k left over sounds perfectly fine.

Our new mortgage will be just over 20% of our take home which is fairly manageable. However we do have childcare for another couple of years. So once that is done it will be much easier. You will be at 37.5% of take home which is a fair bit more but only you know your other outgoings so it’s hard to tell.

I’d be fine with that.

Bloody hell we only take home £2000 a month between us both and couldn't even dream of a mortgage

Hmmm we pay £1300 with an income of £6000. Not sure id want to be much higher as we put money in savings too and like to overpay.

No need to go to top of budget though it's madness to get more house than you need to my mind. We bought a lovely semi and we're doing it up slowly, much more satisfying and nice knowing we've got a buffer!

Can you go interest only on part of the mortgage? This would bring the monthly payments down in the event of job loss. But you can still pay as if the whole lot is repayment in the meantime.

Similar boat, take home around 8000, modest home with small mortgage but huge school fee pushes fixed outgoing to over 4000 before the vat, extremely anxious now.

It's doable but it is a lot of money.

Things I'd consider are is your combined 8k income roughly 4k each or is there an imbalance in your earning? I'd be concerned if it's heavily skewed then that is a lot of pressure on the higher earner (although does give more scope for the lower earner to increase their earnings).

I'd also look at what the repayments could be if you have a fix which doesn't last for the full term of the mortgage, especially if you would not be able to extend the term of the mortgage.

And then I'd consider how easy it is likely to be to sell the house if you changed your mind and wanted to live somewhere else.

Our take home is £9.5k and mortgage £3300. Not ideal but it’s fine. We just ensure we have a good buffer always in savings (£80k currently) and we also have unemployment insurance for the mortgage.

Ours is similarly proportionate. Is your equity going to be high? Can you extend out the term or do you have savings if things go wrong?

we went from a mortgage that was 10% of our net pay a month to 35% of our net base pay. We definitely feel it. Before we had lots of money spare to spend on whatever we wanted and went on holiday a lot. Now I’m not flippant with purchases and we save much less. But we are mid 30s, our house is very big and has all the facilities we wanted etc so hopefully won’t have to move again.

Yours sounds high! I account for about £1k on direct debits.

£300 council tax
£150 energy
£40 water
£30 internet
£50 phones
£100 insurance (house, car)

Plus a few direct debits for Netflix, cleaning and stuff.

What’s your £2k on?

Make sure you have income protection insurance and mortgage payment protection insurance. Mortgage of less than 40% of your take home pay should be manageable.

No way. That would be too much risk for me. If mortgage rates go up or if something happens with one of your jobs, you're screwed.
As a pp said though, the exception would be if you need a home in a very specific area and this is the only way you can buy a property that meets your family's needs.
Whereas if you could buy something smaller and cheaper instead, I would.

Meant to say we have a joint income of 7k a month and a mortgage of £1650. We have a nice life, we overpay on our mortgage and we manage to save a small amount. We struggle to afford to do the house up though because that costs so much. You need to consider how things would look if the cost of living went even higher or if one of you lost their job. 3k is a big amount.

What mortgage deal have you got and what your outgoings/ lifestyle is

Our mortgage is approx 30% of take home whereas yours will be approx 37.5%. For us the hit was softened by a 10yr fix at 2% in 2022

Honestly I wouldn’t do that. It’s an awful lot, and if one of you lost your job, you’d be stuck.

I am not particularly spending averse (and my husband is really really spendy) and honestly we wouldn’t take that on. 25% of take home is the highest I would ever go.

The only caveat to this is if you live in London and it’s the only way to get a house that meets your needs (ie you’re a family of 5 in a 2 bedroom apartment). At that point, I would say it meets the risk/benefit threshold! But basically only as a last resort, not just because you want a 5 bed instead of 4, or a larger plot etc.

Would add that does include some childcare costs

I think you're underestimating bills. Our joint take home is about £6k and our mortgage is only £1,500 but our total expenditure before food including all phones, bills, council tax and various insurances is about £3,500.

We earn less and our mortgage is less but it’s proportionate. I did worry a bit when we moved house but we needed somewhere bigger and because we are in our 40’s we needed a shorter term mortgage hence why the monthly payment was a bit higher. We have to be careful but we are still able to save for holidays and Christmas and I can do extra hours at work for treats and extras if I want them

Our take home is £3.1k and mortgage of £600. I would be more than happy with having £5k left after I'd paid my mortgage!

Before I sold up 6yrs ago, my mortgage was £750 pcm and my take home was £1350.

That’s sounds like a lot. Although it’s affordable, would it be if mortgage rates went up? Are you planning on having children? And what about unforeseen expenses. I would consider finding a cheaper property if I were you. Is the mortgage so high because the area you live in or because you ware pushing yourself to get your dream home?

My take home is circa £4.4 k and I'm about to up my mortgage to around £1.7k

Can you take the mortgage out over a longer term to reduce the minimum payment? If so then you could still overpay to a total of £3k per month (or more) but it would give you the comfort of knowing that you don’t have to pay the full £3k in any month if something unexpected happens?