If your monthly take-home pay was £4,500...

[mronion]

...what would be the maximum amount you were prepared to spend on rent/mortgage a month? One child, no childcare costs, commuting costs of circa £400 p/month, no car, no other major outgoings apart from food and all the usual utilities.

And would you think, given the above, that that was a lot to live on or not very much?

Trying to settle a debate with DSIL.

Is that £4,500 for one parent or both?

Depends hugely on the geographical area. And personal preference on style of housing, too. It’s a bit of ‘how long is a piece of string’ to a point.

With one child and no childcare, assuming it’s household income, I’d consider it pleasantly comfortable but by no means ostentatiously comfortable.

£1500 per month I'd be happy paying, but it is subjective. Some people want to pay more into savings/pensions/holidays/etc.

These are always difficult because different people have different priorities

Hmm, I'd be quite cautious at the moment because interest rates are so uncertain. I'd not take on a debt I couldn't afford if interest rates shot up to 12% for example. I'd pick a smaller mortgage and overpay whilst interest rates are low.

I’d take a mortgage of £2000 per month without thinking twice.

Seeing as it would take me three months to earn that much, I'll do a multiple of what I can barely afford.

£2100

Wow, that's a good salary. 1 adult, 1 kid, NO childcare?
Is the kid a teenager coz they ain't cheap.

Ok, I'll punt. Mortgage + council tax I'd spend £1.8-2k comfortably & would consider up to £2.5k.

Change the picture to 2 adults + 1 kid, I'm thinking £1-1.5k as comfortable.

I wouldn’t want to spend more than 25% of my income on my mortgage payment.

£1800. That would allow me to save as well as living well.

2k tops

2k

I bring home £1.6k a month, one child, no childcare costs, no commuting costs, no car and I live pretty comfortably (rent £425pm) so yes that is a LOT to live on from my point of view.

To be honest though depending on the area I wouldn't want to spend any more than I absolutely need to on mortgage/rent, I'd always get the cheapest property that meets my needs. Experiences are more important to me than bricks and mortar.

Mortgage probably only £1000-1200, I wouldn't want it to be more than 25% unless in a very expensive area where more would need to be spent for the minimum requirements. Surprised how many people would be happy for their mortgage to be upwards of 50% of their income, with interest rates I think that's too risky, unless it was a short term mortgage, I'd happily over pay up to £2000 with the flexibility to drop to something more manageable if required.

Big house = bigger bills tho, I'd say £2k max for mortgage, council tax, elec etc. Then you've got £2k left for for food and fun stuff

We always stretched ourselves with property costs. Shorter term pain. Longer term gain.

DH earns roughly that and we’ve just agreed a mortgage of 1.3k per month.

Our rationale is that we are able to live off one salary comfortably if we want to in the future.

I’d say max would be 1.5k for us.

No childcare costs and no plans for any children in the future? I'd probably be happy to spend up to 1.5k.

We have an income of half that and there are 2 adults and 4 dc in our house so I'd definitely consider that a comfortable wage!

About £1200 maximum. £1000 I would feel more comfortable with.

£2000. My rent is £1000 and I earn a lot less than that.

I wouldn’t want to spend more than 25% of my income on my mortgage payment.

^^ this, unless you’re in an area where that won’t get you anything halfway decent. Interest rates are very low right now, they’ve got nowhere to go but up, and I’d want to be in a position where interest rate rises wouldn’t mean immediate financial disaster.

That’s my exact take home but I have a DH who earns twice as much. Our mortgage is £1800 (but we have a lot of other outgoings). If it was just me on that salary with one child then I wouldn’t be comfortable with spending more than £1500 on mortgage so that I could try and save/have safety net (eg big expense with car, dental emergency, boiler repairs: just some of the things that I’ve been hit with in the last 6 months!!)

It depends on other variables. Equity, pension, occupation (security), where you live, what you want in future.

2k, but I would probably overpay to at least 2.5k.

£1000.

We bring in as a household a bit more than that , 2 adults, 1dc and a dog (more expensive to keep than the child!) and we've just increased our mortgage to £975 to pay for an extension which equates to about 20% of our monthly salary (after tax, pensions etc). we've taken a fixed term mortgage on the new part due to uncertainty (brexit) and I wouldn't want to go higher than 20% of our total income.