to be so fed up that my house has not increased in value in TWELVE YEARS

[chocolatemixedwithdogfood]

That, really.

It's in a not very great part of Glasgow - not horrific but not posh either - but it was all we could afford at the time. We paid £165,000 for it in 2006. Then increased the mortgage by 10,000 so we could convert the attic. Thinking that within five years we'd sell it for around £200k and move somewhere a bit bigger as our family grew.

Upshot has been that its valued has remained what we paid for it at the very most - we were told that it would fetch between 150-165 maximum by an estate agent this year.

We have rented it out for the past six years as our family got bigger and we needed another bedroom. And we rent our house.

It's in good condition, lovely big garden, nicely painted, though the current tenants are not keeping it in great condition with their huge dog and it will need a massive deep clean when they leave, however they are good tenants in that they always pay on time and keep the garden nice, etc.

Just wonder if it will ever increase in value, and if we will ever be able to afford a bigger house or will be forever renting.

Your house may not have increased in value but presumably you now have considerable equity in the property that you could use towards a deposit for a bigger house? And if your house had increased significantly in value then so too would the bigger house that you want, so you probably wouldn't be in any better a position in terms of affording it.

There are so many people struggling to get on the property ladder at all, I think you should count your blessings that you own a house and have that security.

If you want to move to a higher value property, then you don't actually want house prices to go up.

Think of it this way. If a bigger house is, say, 20% more expensive than a smaller one, and the smaller one is 100k, then the bigger one is 120k, and to move from one to the other you need to find 20k.

If the smaller is 200k, on the other hand, the bigger one would be 240k and so to move to the bigger one you would have to find 40k, so twice as much.

How do you mean elessar? I thought that if we sell it, we only get the increase in value over what we paid for it? So if we bought it for 165k then sold it for 175, we'd get £10k?

I do understand that we are lucky, however the chances of us ever moving back there are non existent, we both moved south for better jobs and kids are at school here. I do understand though that there are those who can't get on the property ladder at all and if it makes me feel all bitter that there are people whose property increases in value in a few months by the entire amount that our property has in 12 years, how must it make them feel.

I just thought that in 12 years it would have increased by something, I don't know anyone else in this position.

But you must have paid off some of the mortgage by now?

Is your property on an interest only mortgage?

Aren't you paying off the mortgage?

Elessar means that your equity has increased, surely?

Unfortunately 2006 was right at the peak of the property bubble, so I'm not too surprised.

I'm in Glasgow too and my friend is in exactly the same situation, worse even, she paid £150k for a 2 bed new build in Ruchill in 2006 or 7, on an interest only mortgage and its worth £130 ish now.

If you bought it for 165k and had 20k deposit (for example) your mortgage was £145k, £155k once you added the 10k. If you've been paying off capital for 12 years you should have some more equity, your mortgage should now be around £130k so you've got £35k to put toward the next house.

Or were you on a 100% mortgage or interest only?

Sorry should have said, it was an 100%mortgage and it's interest only. So no equity.

But we plan to change mortgage next year to capital.

Say you brought at 100 and the next notch up the ladder was 150. If prices stay the same you need to find 50 extra to move.

If prices go up 25%, the 100k house is worth 125 the 150k house becomes worth 187.5k so rather than finding 50k you need to find 62.5k (the difference between the revised value of the two 187.5 and 125).

I'd be incredibly pissed off in this situation, yes. You've gained nothing from owning the property. In fact you've lost money in mortgage arrangement fees, solicitor fees etc as I imagine the rental income will have only covered the mortgage not giving a profit.

12 years ago you brought at the height of the market, so at least your property has retained its value, may properties have not.

A 100% interest only mortgage? What vehicle do you have to pay it off? Have you been overpaying?

What possessed you to get a 100% interest only mortgage? You own absolutely nothing.

Ah, interest only. Well that's a shame but I'd advise you to get it onto a capital repayment mortgage asap and start making inroads into paying it off. Then your equity will increase and then you'll have a chance of using that against a deposit for a larger property down the line.

If it makes you feel any better op, ours has gone down in value by 15,000.
It's absolutely gutting!

I'd be incredibly pissed off in this situation, yes. You've gained nothing from owning the property.
Apart from housing security and not just chucking rent into the abyss.

I can understand you're disappointed, OP, we conditioned to think of houses as money making entities, but at least you've not had a massive loss.

Ah, just seen what type of mortgage you've been on, that's unfortunate.

Get a couple more estate agencies around to see what they value it at. Yy to paying off the capital asap.

Rent/interest what's the difference.

It's not good, but if the price of your house had gone up then the prices of bigger houses would have gone up too.

im a bit surprised that they allowed you to stay on interest only when you got permission to let out.

Why keep it rather than sell it? Have you made good money renting it out? If not why not sell if it's not making money or increasing in value.

It's definitely a bit galling to see other people make vast amounts from property for doing absolutely nothing, but unfortunately that's the way the cookie crumbles. You'll just have to save up the deposit for the next house or pay down the mortgage.

We didn't make much from our first house and I was pretty annoyed. We just had to save really hard to make up the shortfall and put off our moving plans a bit longer.

Look at it this way: if you were paying rent on a similar property, would the rent be higher?

If so, then your living costs have been lower for the last 12 years than they would otherwise be... mortgage repayments tend to be lower than rental rates.