to feel seething resentment towards those who profited from the house price bubble and hot anger at the Governments who allowed it to happen?

[TartyMcFarty]

You'll have to forgive my naivety here - I'm ranting about something I don't really understand.

DH and I are stuck. In 2006 we bought a (modest) property on a 100% mortgage. Foolish in hindsight, I know, but based on the advice of our IFA, the unshakeable faith of our families and society that property ownership was the way to go, and the increasing pressure at the time to get on the ladder or miss out, that was the decision we made. We then found that the lender, bastard bastard Northern Rock were unwilling to remortgage based on our lack of equity, despite us having overpaid by several thousand pounds. We couldn't shift the place, and with the agreement of a different IFA, remortgaged against the equity in my DM's property (love her!). It gets more complicated than that, but that's all that's needed here. Now we still can't sell it , our tax credits have suddenly disappeared, my pension contribution has increased (DH doesn't even have a pension) and the tracker rate is slowly increasing. We're on interest only, and as I'm part time since the having DD, with another DC on the way, there's not much of a cushion.

What's really angered me over the last couple of days is the dawning realisation of how people just a few years older than us have profited from the massive increase in property 'values'. I'm still in touch with our ex-neighbour. She bought seven years earlier than us, sold at £120k profit after 10 years (this is not London!), her partner was in a similar situation so they have ended up comfortably in a property of twice the size, renovated to a really lovely standard. Obviously my resentment isn't directed at them personally - they're good people, have profited from a stupid market and good luck to them - but it's just an illustration.

How can we possibly hope to survive in a property market that boomed by more than 3.5x in this instance alone? We can't even afford to maintain our own home to a good standard. Pay isn't moving at all, and we're currently looking at less than .75 of a pension between us. I can't even bear to think about how we'll support our DCs through HE, and the risk to my DM's home if interest rates shoot up.

I just need a rant. Those of us stupid enough to be sucked in at high LTV rates towards the peak of the market are fucked all ways, whereas people just 5 years older than us are untouchable. I know I've only given one example for which I know the exact figures, but there are others I can think of in the same lucky situation. There just doesn't seem to be any point in trying when you compare our situation with those who profited so enormously in the 00s.

I really have to go to bed before my blood pressure explodes. Midwife would not be happy!

well good for them :~) but the circumstances of each time will favour some, and not others...

easier 30 years ago? don't be daft. for your parents, maybe...

It does indeed Worra. I hope I can find your enthusiasm for my youngest then... Although if I cark it at 75, she'll only be mid thirties so should be ok... The others will just have to become thieving bankers or something.

I really really struggle to understand just how the prices in London (and elsewhere for that matter, but particularly in London) are so high. I can almost 'get' Belgravia and Knightsbridge I suppose, but Balham/Clapham/Earlsfield???? Almost £1m for a 4 bed terrace anyone - And it's fucking rat run road that is NOT a nice one.

Things go in cycles. When we first bought in 1985 (yes, I am an old gimmer) it was hard to get a mortgage, there was no competition in the mortgage market just repayment or endowment and interest rates were higher.

Times are hard now, my DB is in serious negative equity. I feel sorry for younger families and for my DCs when they come to buy but it hasn't all been plain sailing for us. Interest rates hit 15% at one point and there have been slumps in prices before (we bought a house in 1988 and sold it in 1995 for the same price, having gone down then recovered)

We are lucky to have a nice home and will no doubt use that to help our own DCs when the time comes

The thing is, the London prices are high due to the commuting distance Frank

But what really pisses me off is that most of the houses around here and my Dad's area (Ilford) are owned by Landlords who really don't give a shit about their properties.

They look like slums and yet people are paying £150+ per week.... per room

My Dad worked in a factory and my Mum evenings filing for the hospital. First house bought for about two grand. Their current normal three bed which has am extension and which they live alone would fetch 200k if they hadn't released 30k for shits and giggles ten years ago not understanding compound interest. They gave me a hundred pounds from it though which was nice. And now my Dad rages that I am not doing enough to protest against the government. Says the man who voted for Thatcher. Twice.

What annoys me is the only people to benefit from high house prices is the government via stamp duty and of course we'll all have to work and pay NI and tax for longer, 30 year mortgage anyone ? This has been a deliberate policy.

There has been a horrible inequity betwenn people born a few years apart, but at 34 you could have bought before 2006. It is people 10 years younger than you who will be stuck in private lets all their life who have really had it bad, not your generation.

One more worrying thought I had earlier - I've been telling myself that the powers that be really can't allow a property correction because so many stand to lose. But in the situation I described in the OP, a correction would affect the couple I mentioned far less than it would us, because the made a good £150k+ in actual, real cash on their homes. There are relatively far fewer of us who bought at the peak. Will we be left to take the hit? If so, without any equity to speak of, we would be ruined. Or am I being over-dramatic?

We were lucky, bought at the right time and made a profit but it wasn't easy. We couldn't raise the deposit and last chance saloon went cap in hand to FIL (stinking rich). He said to DH "I can either give you the deposit and that will be your inheritance OR lend it to you and you repay me with the current rate of interest"

We chose the latter and he even had an agreement drawn up at the bank making us jointly liable to repay. We paid it back over three years. I still have the original agreement. It did mean we scraped by over that time. And it was just a case of buying at the right time.

No victoria, we couldn't, but please feel free to make assumptions. I graduated in 99 and started out in a very low paid job. I then decided to go for teacher training but couldn't get a mortgage on my salary. When I met DH he was a mature(ish) student, and prices were shooting future beyond our reach. And if your wondering, I didn't piss my salary away on holidays, socialising or a new car. If you start with nothing, it takes a long, long time to get anywhere.

Worra my aforemetioned FIL is in Ilford you're not my SIL are you?

There would have been a house price crash by now i believe if it was going to happen but yes last time it was Jose who bought at the peak who got wiped out. You'd just go bankrupt now and start again after a couple of years in the 1990's people who got caught out were pursued for every last penny.
If it suited the banks to crash property they would, but it doesn't.

tarty I think most people know how lucky they have been and know how crap it is for people who are now stuck in NE. It's all but for the grace of God and all that after all we never know what's around the corner.

I know people in Ireland who god very badly burned by property both on the way up and the way down, you just never really know what's going to happen. I wouldn't ever trust a financial adviser without doing my own research, they are basically sales people and I would only ever borrow what I could afford.

As an aside, could you rent your property out and then rent something bigger? Would the rent cover the mortgage?

Worra - I get that bit. But how does a house that I bought in 1994 for 105k become 240k in 3½ years - NOTHING changed in that particular area - even now it is still pretty crappy. So, they did up the Arndale and popped a Sainsbury's down the road, but there is no tube, the roads are one big traffic jam and, well, it's grey and grim. I understand why my house now has risen so much since 98 - excellent schools, excellent space, excellent transport links into town and it is now a really great place to live - and I say that as someone who has just spent the best part of a decade living in sunny climes in Southern Europe and prefer being back!

I know what you mean about Ilford, I have quite a few friends in Hornchurch and beyond and it is clear that it's landlord after landlord property and that they are raking it in.

isn't it the people that buy loads of properties to buy to let that make this a lot worse than older people who bought houses as houses for their families as long term investments?

tbh i cant really resent people that have worked hard to pay off their mortgages or hate a government when it is the people paying ever increasing prices that help this madness.

snake, when I mentioned in my OP that things get more complicated, that's effectively what we've done. It helps to cover out costs to a degree, but our tenant is soon to move out, which is perhaps why I'm getting the willies now. It also complicates matters when it comes to selling, as we'd be doing so with a tenant in, and therefore with limited control over how the place looked and whether or not the tenant would stay in the property until we sold. Feels like an even bigger hole TBH.

TeamEdward - I have just done the same. The house I bought in mid '94 for 105k (three bed Victorian terrace, though it's had the loft conversion done now) sold last year for £590k. So in 17 years it has gone up by almost half a million quid.

YANBU, for people like me in our mid 30's its rather annoying to see those that were able to settle down at a young age getting on the property ladder and moving up, whereas by the time DH and I were in a position to buy property prices were at an affordable level for us.

However I thank my lucky stars we were lucky enough to be given a lovely HA property and all the advantages that come with that including the fact we could never be able to afford our house even 10 years ago on the open market.

in 1999 you could have bought a flat on a min wage job- I know a teenager who bought on her own whist working at McDonalds at that time, you delayed and you lost out, we all make mistakes

I was lucky to take my first mortgage at 19. Now at 34 we have 10 years left. Our first house was a stupid buy. But this house seemed a bit out of reach but it wasn't and now we have a low mortgage with only 10 more years. I really do struggle not to be aghast at how much friends mortgages are a month. Rents round here for our house would be about £950 which is a lot more than our mortgage. I don't know how either child will ever afford their own home.

I know it's stressful but tbh my experience of property is stressful at least your mortgage is paid and you have something bigger. Perhaps by the time you come to move again you'll be able to get a 2nd property without having to sell the first, then you'll be the problem rather than the solution

See I'm a big fan of the 100% mortgage because it worked for us. We got ours in 1999 when I was a sahm with dd1 and it was based on three times dh's salary. My parents were horrified by the size of the loan.
9 years later we sold the house for 100 grand more than we paid. If 100% mortgages hadn't been available we would NEVER have been able to save enough to buy. The risk you take with 100% is negative equity, the benefit is that you can at least buy a home.