What is your definition of a 'big mortgage'?

[magicalkitty]

I heard someone say £100k is a 'big mortgage' with house prices today that seems quite small to me as huh would need a big deposit to only borrow £100k, unless you are buying a very small property in a cheap area.

It got me wondering, what is a big mortgage? Mine started at £210k and I thought that was about average?

Something more than you can afford.

However I'd consider anything over £1k a month or over £500,000 high but not surprising for a family home these days (outside of big cities where the price will be much higher anyway).

This

My friend knows this strange couple with an interest-only mortgage of around £600k and did nothing about it at the end of the term. They didn't repay it and thought they could renew, Barclays refused and started repossession proceedings and they agreed to pay £23k per month which they have been doing for about a year and a half - she does not work and he works from home investing - they have seriously flash cars - yet if you met him very witty very self-deprecating ( to the point at times its painful) does all the school runs in a modest little car - can't work it out. My friend is obsessed with how they manage

It's relative to the mortgage holders income surely? A 1m mortgage to someone with a 300k salary is going to be more affordable than a £100k mortgage to someone on 20k.

I feel like mines a big mortgage. It’s 30% of our take home and we struggle.

Ours is objectively big- £515k remaining and it doesn’t feel like it’s come down that much over the decade we’ve been paying it. However, as house prices have grown, our ltv has come down so it doesn’t feel quite as scary because if we really had to we could sell the house and benefit from the equity in it. The bit that scares me more isn’t the size but the fact we have it running until 68 and will likely need to use pension to clear.