To think it's rude to ask someone how much their mortgage repayments are?

[CatchTheRainbow]

Two people have asked me this since I moved to my new house.

I kind of feel it's like asking someone how much they earn. It's personal and should only be shared if that person offers up that information freely.

My rent is £1700.

I do not and know no one who does earn £6800 a month

I dont think its regional MrsKoala-Im not in London.

That would have made me laugh Diana, and I would have said something like "I made a killing in the crash of 08".

If its so rude to ask how things are got, that seems very convenient for the ones doing all the getting iyswim?

I just don't get why money is a dirty secret. We all need it, most of us could do with a bit more of it, some have more than enough. Its a fact of life.
Maybe its a class thing, I don't know. My cousin who left school young to be a bricklayer is pretty minted these days (hes a software engineer now). He recently had extensive work done to his house, and I asked him how much it cost. He told me, didn't raise an eyebrow. He knows he is well off, and that's fine. He doesn't pretend that his nice house and expensive holidays are brought in the night by very discreet fairies!

Ooooooh money should be SECRET and SHAMEFUL and never be discussed. #lame #soenglish

Such a stupid thing to be sniffy about - I can just look up your house sold price on the land registry you know... That is way more 'personal' than discussing mortgage rates/amounts etc

He recently had extensive work done to his house, and I asked him how much it cost. He told me, didn't raise an eyebrow.

Exactly. Why is is a bad thing to understand how much some work of a certain quality and spec costs? Is shouldn't be.

AndShesGone I PMSL at the idea that rent =one quarter of a salary.
That's why it matters to talk about this stuff, otherwise there are these assumptions that are woefully out of date.
The fact that private rent is often around 60% of people's net income illustrates the fact that we have an unsustainable situation for a lot of people (not just those low income benefit scrounger types).
I reckon the majority of people I know in my area with long standing mortgages (or not, as a lot of them in their 40s will be paying them off now) have no clue how much rent is, or how little most people earn and how much they pay out in rent.

The first flat i rented in London with exH about 15 yrs ago was £850 a month. i was on £12k and he was on £14k. We had a joint income of about 2k. Certainly not a quarter.

It wouldn't bother me. I'd assume they were just trying to work things out for their own situation.

Not with one of them I may have muttered about being a successful drug runner which didn't go down too well...

#lame #soenglish

Well if it's 'lame' to be 'so English' then I'm lame and proud of it.

Very rude and not the done thing. I don't even like people I don't know that well asking what price I paid for a house (I know they can look it up online, I just think it's a really naff question to ask) obviously close friends and family is fine but I remember once when we bought our first house and people in the pub were asking what size our mortgage is......errr fark offf! You'll have to come up with a one liner to fob them off with