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.

Having a mortgage isn’t usually any more expensive than renting. Also, generally speaking payments decrease the further into your mortgage you get whereas as far as I’m aware, your monthly rent doesn’t change.
You also have an asset to sell/pass onto your children with a house you own, whereas renting you are just enabling someone else to do this.

Actually rents tend to increase with time and inflation...

This thread is motivating me even more :)

Also my husband and son have just been made redundant, luckily our mortgage can drop to £400 a month and still can pay it off in 5 years time, imagine if we’d been renting all that time, we’d be on right pickle now

Renting through retirement terrifies me

And so it ought thats why I'd advise most anyone ot get on the mortage ladder.

Even if you havet paid it all off at least you have the option of selling and getting somewhere smaller!

It's all about the deposit isn't it?

We were lucky enough to have relatives to provide the 20% deposit on our little house , which was around £25'000. We would never have saved that amount as rental costs left us with virtually nothing. I suppose could have lived like hermits eating beans and toast and put about £400 per month away, but that would have been miserable and taken us about 6 years.

When I think back to the ' Northern Rock' days...0% deposits and all you need to find were moving and solicitors costs.

So may people are trapped in the rental market, genuinely unable to save for a deposit due to the high cost of renting. Home ownership just isn't an option.

Yes the monthly repayments are fine, it's getting that deposit together that's the hurdle.

If you have a mortgage, you pay your mortgage, if you rent, you pay someone else's mortgage.

Couldn't afford to pay the mortgage if I didn't have a job. Couldn't afford to pay rent once I'm retired.

In my opinion it's worth it.

Houses can go down in price though, you could end up having to hand back the keys and owing tens of thousands to the bank.

House ownership is never certain, there are lots of ups and downs which don't seem to have been mentioned on this thread just that buying is good, renting is bad

We'll pay our mortgage off by the time we are 50 so will have the money to spend on uni fees. Couldn't afford both if we were renting!

Very few people end up having their house repossessed, even in economic downturns. You can try and do things to mitigate, take a payment holiday, go interest only or extend the mortgage term. There is usually a (painful!) way around it.

You can’t pay your rent, you will be leaving your house. End of.

Buying a house is not risk free. No investment ever is, and I speak as someone who has diversified investments as much as I can. I can and still do lose money. Property however has been the most lucrative investment for us, long term.

Unless your pension is gold plated, it’s hard to find the money to pay rent in retirement. It’s not a nice feeling when your peers will be enjoying their pensions in their mortgage free homes. Most elderly people won’t end up in care homes either.

Our mortgage is currently £250pm (repayment mortgage - started at £500pm but has dropped over time as rates have fallen and we've paid more off) and rent would be more than double that. Our house isn't an investment, it's our home. It's decorated to our taste, and we can do what we want with it. We have pets (including dogs and chickens!) that would make renting tricky. For us it was a no-brainer.

However if you are in a situation where you want to move regularly, or want to live in an expensive area, then renting might make more sense to you. Similarly if you live in an area/country with secure long term rents!

When we bought, we set a budget and went 20-30k under it both times. We avoided premium-priced postcodes and ended up on council/mixed estates and have had brilliant neighbours and community! A low price property with a small mortgage has been a good decision for us, as we've been able to overpay on capital when savings rates have plummeted, bringing our overall payments down too. You can get mortgages with payment holidays so if you have a few bad months, you don't have to worry.

But again, if your lifestyle is more conducive to renting then that might be a better option for you.

Well we are on house number 4 and hopefully our last. Yes the first few years were hard but I pay just over £300 per month on my mortgage (10 years remaining). If I was to rent the property I own it would be £2500 per month and not mine and therefore not my kids inheritance.

Also what if you have pets? a lot of rentals don’t allow pets, I could never give up my dogs. When you rent you have to stick to a rigid contract, with so many stipulations. When you own your house you have more freedom re pets, decorating, extension, etc

@PinkiOcelot you are right about nursing homes weather you were a top lawyer or never worked for the last 20 odd years you will be in the same care home as Jo bloggs. £1000+ is the cost per week to live in one I use to hear many complain that it’s unfair that they had to sell their house yet worked all their life. Buying a house is different in these times.
I think the only appealing thing is that I could pick a nicer area.... as for it going to my NOK well I wouldn’t bank on it!

We have never had a mortgage. Nor any loans or credit cards. I realise this is not all positive but it's suited us just fine and we're in our late 40s. We've always rented and we've also managed to send both children to private school.

That was our choice.

My FIL has made it clear that he has a good legacy for us....we're not fully banking on it because in reality, anything could happen....but it's unlikely to because FIL is shrewd. He's named both myself and DH in his will. He did this because he was definite that he wanted to provide some money for me separately. He told me "because you never know, do you?" and FIL is a dear man who sees me as a DD....my Dad is long gone and I'm grateful to have such a loving FIL.

So he's leaving a house plus money to us.

If that all goes tits up, we'll still be renting....but so what? I don't care. We've been able to live in much nicer areas as renters than we could if we bought.

We’ve gone backwards and there’s no one else i know in rl who’s done it which makes us oddballs amongst our peers.

We bought a house young-125% mortgage, no deposit needed, cash on top to do it up.
Had the mortgage for 10 years. We grew to dislike where we lived more and more, especially when we had dc and realised how poor the local schools were and how much poverty and misery was in the area...having children really makes you see things in a different light ime.

We decided on the area we’d like to live but there was no way we could afford to buy, the house prices are completely out of our range. So we sold our house and walked away with nothing (just about broke even).

We’ve now rented for 2 years in our desired area. The rent on our large 3 bed in the most sought after area is £300 a month more than our mortgage was on a compact 2 bed in an average to shit area.

It’s money well spent imo. I would far rather rent here for the rest of my life than own where we were before. We’re all much happier...the general sense of well-being that you get from living somewhere you love trumps the satisfaction of owning by miles, to me.

The general feeling of family and friends is that we’re crazy, we’ve gone backwards, owning your own house is the ultimate sacrifice-anything-for-it aim.

I see friends struggling in too-small houses as they’re maxed out on the mortgage or locked in negative equity, worrying about new boilers and windows and repairs.

I don’t envy it at all tbh. There’s more to life than a mortgage.

In the medium to long term you'll usually have a better quality of life WITH a mortgage.
Rents go up in line with inflation, but the mortgage payments don't (although they can flactuate according to interest rates). You can also change mortgage companies from time to time to get a better deal.
Don't underestimate the huge benefits of being mortgage free by the time you retire- unless you have a large private pension this it can be the difference between being comfortably off or on the poverty line!

It is tough saving gor a deposit and you do have to limit going out to once a week and we did not go on holiday for 3 yeats whilst saving our deposit, but it is worth it. The fisrt four or five years you may pay a little more than rent would be but then your mortgage is the same but if you were renting your rent would go up every couple of years. After 10 years a mortgage payment might only ge 75% of what rent would be. Over time you also get equity build up in your house, so use this to remortgage with lower interest rate. We only have less than 4 years left now as we have been making over payments whilst interest rates are low. If we were renting our house we would be paying double what we pay in mortgage. Over time you will always win by buying.

I am another one who doesn't like having a mortgage and who happily rents.

When I was young and first married, we bought our first and second homes. It was a nightmare. Huge mortgages, never enough money, fears about upkeep which was all down to us (eg. when the chimney blew off in a storm, damaging the roof, there was no landlord to come along and sort it out).

I realised all our money was tied up in the property, we couldn't just give notice and move when we wanted, nor could we afford to buy the type of property in the area we wanted to as it was too expensive.

After my divorce I decided never to buy again. I haven't regretted it at all. I have rented some super places, in beautiful locations for affordable rent which I could never have bought, it would have been too great a mortgage. However, I have always taken on "stable" rentals, places which are for long-term living, not someone's property they're letting while going abroad for a year or two. In addition, I have always rented places where the landlord is happy for me to redecorate or make changes to the property or garden....

I am now facing retirement and quite happy to rent during my retired years. I have recently taken on a pretty place in the countryside which I can stay in until I die or decide to give up the tenancy and move on. The rent is very cheap and I don't worry about upkeep. All my money is mine, not tied up in a property so I don't worry about having money in old age either. I can't see the problem.

We British are obsessed with owning property, some of it came from the Thatcher years, the drive to buy a home intensified then. In other European countries, including France, it is fairly normal to rent and owning your own home isn't such a big thing.

My mortgage for a 3 bed terrace in the SE is £700 & the rent for the same house down the road is £1800 pcm. So it's a no brainer really to want to own as rents are more expensive than mortgages round here.

If I was renting my place, I wouldn't be able to have the life style that I do now. I'd be directing all available funds to pay my rent.

I guess renting is OK if you find somewhere reasonably stable - I'm always horrified at friends and colleagues renting who find somewhere OK only to have the landlord decide they want to sell rather than extend the lease, then have just a few weeks to find somewhere new.

Our mortgage for a 5 bed is the same as rental on a 3 bed in our area so it's cheaper gives us security and is an asset.

If you are young ish your earnings will improve meaning disposable income increase in time.

I would recommend going for a renovated property though as you sound overextended so a moneypit isn't what you need

Depends on your circumstances. A lot of people on mn have secure careers or their husbands do and they really can't conceive of what it's like to live month to month or with the constant threat of unemployment hanging over you.

It's really depressing to read these threads saying how awful renting is when it's the only possibility for some of us.

Great that you're sorted but it's just not realistic for many. I wish people would respond a little more sensitively.

Besides that, there are lots of benefits to renting: being able to move flexibly, not having to think about repair costs, not having to worry so much about housing market collapses (though of course it impacts renters too), not having to save for a massive deposit. Yes, owning your own house is more secure but it's not the be all and end all.

What you will be getting is housing security and your own home rather a home you’re renting. I’m surprised you’re questioning this now having written extensively of your desire and inability to purchase a house over the past few years. If you’re now managing to save up now, that’s great. My advice is to keep going and get your own place when you’re able but only if you think you’ll be able to keep up with the payments if the interest rates go up massively. Do you have anyone to talk to about this irl?

As for everyone saying rents are cheaper. I imagine you’re comparing apples to pears rather than on a 100% loan basis. I don’t think rents are cheaper than houses on the current purchase price. The only lls, who make a decent profit are those, who’ve been at it for years and with zero or little mortgage and / or have HMO’s in cities.

I can only talk of my knowledge, a typical terraced property worth 270ish and in tip top condition rents at £925. The mortgage for that property on a 1.25% interest rate, which is totally unrealistic for a 100% mortgage, is £100 higher. My house would rent out at about £900 lower than the payments based on the unrealistic 1.25% on a 100% mortgage. Renting it out, with all the associated on costs, I’d be struggling to break even and dh and I own half the house.