To wonder if having a mortgage is worth it?

[malificent7]

If for example you have to scrimp and save for a deposit first...then earn enough for the monthly deposit.
It may mean giving up pleasures and treats in life such as nice food or a social life.
Also it means that many will stay in jobs they hate for fear of loosing a house.

I am aiming for a mortgage but has anyone decided not to get one in order to have a better quality of life. ( mad though that sponds.) I know that dp will gave virtually nowt left for treats if we got one which is going to be hard for 25 years.

It's worth it.

Rents go up.

Mortgages get paid off.

My rent is 665 a month. Did the morthage calculator and i would pay over 1000 a month. More like 1400 a month. Am i doing something wrong?

I’d say go for a mortgage.

Having said that, I rent from a housing association and couldn’t be happier about it. I’ve never been in a position were I would be able to save for a deposit and don’t have a pension either. The pension is now deliberate because as things stand, if I make it to 67 when I can retire I will be better off without a private pension. I will get my rent paid, CT paid, pension credit, etc. and will only be a fiver a week less well off than if I had private pension (I’ve done the calculations on Age Concern website)

Having a cheap rent has also meant that I can now work part time too.

I do appreciate that I am in the minority.

We managed to save for a deposit,not sure how, but our mortgage is £200 cheaper a month than the house we was renting, we struggle, but my partner will be a qualified nurse consultant next year and her money will almost double so life will be easier

It's definitely worth it, you have a tangible asset at the end of the mortgage period that you own outright. Historically houses have always increased in value in the longer term, at least they have in the areas I've lived in. Eg we paid 137k for our current property in 1999 and the estate agents claim it's current value is £400k ish which i find surprising but there it is. Another 10 years left to go on the mortgage now. There may be blips in the middle but you have to take a long term view. In the meantime you get to choose what you do with the place and there's no landlord to give you 2 months notice to leave because they've decided to sell

Malifecent, 3 options: 1. Your current rent is really low for the type of property you're renting, 2. The type of place you want to buy is too expensive, 3. Any of the other variables entered into the calculator are wrong.it is difficult to tell without knowing the price of the types of property you'd like to buy/size of mortgage you'd need.

@malificent7 what interest rate did you enter? Rates are around 1.5% at the moment, depending on the size of your deposit.
You might find, if your deposit is small, that the mortgage is more than renting for a couple of years - after which you can remortgage to a better interest rate as you'd have built more equity and have a better LTV.

DS rents, he has enough money for a house deposit but chooses to rent, he says he doesn't want to live in a house out of the city which will need money and time spending on it and to have to buy loads of stuff for it. Also if he changes jobs which is probably quite likely in the next few years renting is much more flexible for moving house

It is worth not having to pay rent in retirement

How much is the house you rent worth? How much is the house you would buy worth? What is your deposit?

I think its definitely worth it. But I got my mortgage at 22 over 25 years and didn't need a deposit.

If I needed a deposit I wouldn't have been able to save to get one.

You have to live somewhere and if mortgage and renting cost roughly same then renting is just throwing money down the pan. Yes you have to save for a deposit but that money is still there for you.

My rent is £1250 in a perfect area and location. The property is worth £550,000+, there is no way I could get a mortgage and if I could the repayments would be a lot more.

If I could get a mortgage on a cheaper property in an area I don't want to live my daughter would go to a not very good school and I would worry about her going on the streets.

My choice is

Rent the perfect house in the perfect area and my daughter grows up in a fantastic area

OR

Mortgage on a run down down house in a bad area. I would also need to find time to attend to the house.

So I Enjoy life with my daughter growing up in a fantastic place, where I can dedicate time to her.

Or

Have a tougher life in a terrible location, spending precious time to work on the house in the hope that in 30 years I will then own a house.

If I am still alive in 30 years will I regret not having had a tougher life to have more money for when I retire.

Time is the most valuable thing we have, my time is enjoyable even though I won't be the richest person in the graveyard.

Either way I can't afford the deposit anyway.

Now we're 10 years into our mortgage, we pay around 600 a month - my neighbour in identical house pays 750 rent. We paid around 800 at the start, but it does get so much easier. Glad we did it now.

@goingonabearhunt1 I would assume feeling trapped is about not being able to move on a whim for schools or new job opportunities.

Of course it’s wortg it I pay £550 a month for a 4 bedroom detached house mortgage and would pay £1000 a month were I to rent the same sort of property and i’ll Own it not just be paying off someone else’s mortgage .

Definitely worth getting a mortgage. We'll be mortgage free by 48 so no more housing payments for life!

It's also the security. I wouldn't want to be facing the threat of having to move especially when I'm retired.

It's interesting that some people are planning their retirement to extract as much money as possible from the taxpayer and deliberately not providing for themselves!

I think when you have children it’s much better to own your home. I have lived in the same house for 16 years, my daughter was born in our house, she has gone to a school that backs onto our garden, her secondary school is 5 minutes from our house. I’m so glad we didn’t have the threat of having to move at short notice, we have nearly paid our mortgage off now as well.

I intend to buy and am about a third of the way to saving up enough for a 10% deposit and the legal/survey fees. I'm 34, realistically I'll be able to get on the property ladder at 36 or 37 - the plan being to get a 25 year mortgage (or 20 if they exist!) and have it all paid off by the time I retire, the earlier the better!

We'll have to move out of our seaside town to buy anything bigger than a one bedroom flat in a grotty area and it'll involve leaving a lot of community stuff that we love but it will be worth it in the end.

We intend to keep saving until we have kids (mortage first, then kids) and then invest whatever we have saved and continue to save if we can. So we'll have the dual benefit of the asset we're paying off for retirement and some savings we can cash in when we're too old to work.

State retirement age for me is 69 but there is so much ageism in the workplace, who is going to hire me for anything at that age? The plan is to save enough to retire a lot earlier.

I also add to a workplace pension but it's not a lot.

Yes, I'm a little late to the party but I will be the first homeowner in multiple generations of my family. My parents were on benefits when I was growing up and I've only been earning enough to save for the last two years (career progression). i still can't save loads, I help pay my mum's bills, commute, have a life, am in a band etc. and so it's not easy but the fund is increasing little by little each month.

So yes, a mortage rather than renting is what I want more than anything. Just to have an asset in old age will help me sleep better at night.

We're not going to have the safety net of a state pension by the time we get old. Governments will think of other ways to keep the elderly fed and watered and I can see some scary things on the horizon, all in the name of progress and care, of course.

If you can get on the ladder now and you're in your twenties, thirties and forties, you still have time! Appreciate it's not easy for everyone, especially if your circumstances are bad. I, personally, have no excuse not to save as much as I can. No way am I ending up financially dependant on the state as an oldie, if you think it's bad now, it'll be awful in 30 years.

That does sound unnecessarily pessimistic - sorry! I'm actually a really optimistic person, I'm trying to be "real" with myself about what's on the horizon as we grow older. The world is not getting kinder.

I'm pretty shocked at the number of posters who favour renting. Are you really happy to effectively buy your landlord a few hundred thousand pound house when you have no security of tenure save a six month contract?

What happens when the landlord of your 'perfect home in the perfect location' decides to sell up?

It's interesting that some people are planning their retirement to extract as much money as possible from the taxpayer and deliberately not providing for themselves!

This is frankly stupid. People have no certainty that the state provision will remain the same once they’ve retired. They are taking a big gamble depending on the government to house them.

Well done medusa for being self-motivated. None of us can depend on the state. The rule always change for the worse.

I have a rule that I only do things that will improve my life and/or make me happier. At the moment we rent and we are not stressing ourselves panicking that we need to buy. Our rent is cheap and buying our own house would actually make the quality of our lives worse.

Maybe it's because I live in Spain and people just aren't property obsessed like Brits are.

We do have other (probably more lucrative) investments though, so it's not a case of not being prepared for the future.

My mortgage on a house is less than you can rent flats for and at the end I have a house in 13 years time....
Renting through retirement terrifies me