Am I being unreasonable?

[ohcluttergotme]

To be so jealous of it feels everyone who seems to have a good mortgage.
We bought our (tiny) house end of 2007, paid top whack then market crashed.
For 5 years we have paid interest only.
It seems to me that everyone I speak to has smaller mortgage for bigger house.

Feel we have done something wrong!

This has happened before. I got caught in something similar in the late 80s. I had to think of it as if I had been renting IUSWIM.

We rent and stand no chance of ever being able to save for a deposit, so I wish we were in your situation!

We're in your position, I wish we had never bought. We've been through a tough few years, dh was made redundant and ive had health problems. There is hardly any help for people with mortgages. If we were renting we'd probably get housing benefit. Im currently doing courses at work so hopefully can get a payrise and hopefully next year we can start making proper repayments. Cant sell either as we're in negative equity.

OK, so maybe you paid over the odds. No shame there as many people have found themselves in exactly the same position. You're Lucky you have been able to maintain the loan as plenty of people have had foreclosures.

As for people with better/lower mortgages, I imagine they have shopped around for a better rate (you are allowed to switch banks) or possibly reduced the principal. Since the available rates improve as the loan to value ratio improves it is ALWAYS wise to strive to pay off some of the principal, even if only £5 each week.

If I was in your position my first port of call would be a mortgage broker. You can find one sitting in the office of any of the large real estate agents. They have access to hundreds of rates and offers that you'd never get personally through the banks.

Parsley, that is how I feel albeit really expensive rent & if anything goes wrong we have no one to call
Reluctantly before we bought we rented for 6 years and I was desperate to "buy a house" wish with hindsight I could go back to renting, honestly don't think owning a home is worth it!
Desperate so sorry you've been through such a tough time & really hope things work out. We're the same had our house valued and at the moment dropped £20,000 and since we've been interest only we're in negative equity too, totally sucks! We pay a fortune in child care so just feels like we're bled dry & constantly don't have a penny.
Zoo, my dh had to go into a trust deed 3 years ago which meant we didn't have to foreclose on mortgage but also means his credit is shot & so no one else will take us on with poor credit and negative equity, we've tried .

We had negative equity back in the early nineties. Just had to save up to it off to move (was sharing with two flatmates). We're now in a stronger position, but there was a lot of scrimping and saving involved.

Clutter that sounds quite depressing for you guys. Can you try again as the government has just made a pile of cash available to kickstart housing some more. There might be some kind of package out there that will help. There's no way for Joe Public to know there things unfortunately. I know it's not much to go on right now while the struggle is hard, but surely housing will right itself in the long term. It's gonna be hard graft but hopefully you'll be able to come through the other side and look back to see how these current struggles have strengthened your character.

Thanks zoo, I'm going to make an appointment with financial advisor and just see if there's any help we're entitled to or anyway of getting a better mortgage deal.
I have a 14 year old dd and trying so hard to say to her do not get into debt early & be sensible & look to me & her dad struggling with debt because of bad decisions with money...she's probably like "yeah, yeah, that won't be me!"

I do try & think one day we will be better off & will look back at these years. Thank you for advice x

It's not unreasonable to be jealous, but it's not going to be doing you any favours. It is what it is, and accepting the things you can't affect is more likely to bring you contentment.

You didn't make a bad decision, you were unlucky - a victim of circumstance.