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.

My mortgage for a bigger house is £150/£200 cheaper than when we were renting, so yes while saving was hard, now we're more financially comfortable. Similarly, one of the benefits is you will eventually pay your mortgage off so when you go into retirement, you won't have extortionate rent to pay on a limited income.

having a mortgage is like having a pension - the scrimping and saving for a deposit is tough but 5 years later once you have the mortgage and rents have gone up by 10% for those without a mortgage but your own outgoings have gone down because you are no longer covering your landlord's mortgage plus profit - then it starts to feel worth it. then 25 years later once it is all paid off it is definitely worth it as you can now live rent-free just as the challenge of living on a retirement income approaches.

stick with it.

We own our house and next door rent theirs. Ours is bigger, yet our mortgage payment is smaller than their rent! Admittedly we have to pay more maintenance so it does balance out. But it will be ours in 21 years, so it will all be worth it!

Mortgages are generally cheaper than rent if you are young enough to get one over 25+ years. My DD has a new mortgage that costs her far less than the rent she paid for a similar house. She pays off the same as she was paying in rent and already her equity has in creased a lot, so she will have a bigger deposit when she buys a bigger house.

I paid off my mortgage last year, having had it for 25 years. I now own my home outright, and have been able to retire earlier because I don't have a hefty mortgage to pay every month. If I live for another 25 years, renting the house I live in would cost me £225 000. That's a shit load of wasted money!

I made enough money selling my first house to afford to buy my current house. I couldn't afford the rent on this house.

Ffs

Just seen it’s a zombie. Just WHY?

I'm mid thirties, 2 small dc and on UC, so the chances of me buying a home in the next 10 years are very slim. I would love a place to call my own though so I'm looking at alternative options like houseboat, tiny home, static or buying abroad in a much cheaper country. A 300k two-bed semi in a naice area doesn't appeal to me really, although if I won the lottery tomorrow I might change my mind!

How will u pay rent when u retire?..not everyone has a pension high enough to cover rent

I think so ..
We have a mortgage but our friends don’t .
They’re a family of 4 and we have had to watch them battle with their landlord over repairs big and small and to even make small changes to their house / garden while we can do whatever we like .
And then out of the blue their long term owner of their house said he was selling and wouldn’t come to an arrangement with them so they could try and buy it themselves which I suppose is far enough but then they struggled to find somewhere else to live in the area they needed for school and even when they did they had to pay through the nose for a substandard place .
I couldn’t have that insecurity and at least once you have a house you will always have that as collateral if you need it

My mortgage repayments were approximately 50% of the rent I had previously paid. I also paid the mortgage off early and now don't have that outgoing.
In addition it is very comforting to know that I can do exactly what I want within my own 4 walls, nobody "policing" or imposing rules, plus nobody is going to give me notice to quit.
There is a lot to be said for it.

Just seen it was a zombie thread . Annoying

We’ve rented for the last 5 years. In that time we’ve paid someone else £45,600. I’d have much rather that went towards a something I owned a part of...

@Fluffytheevil1 how long ago did you buy your house?. Sounds like a lot bought their houses some time ago.

I could never afford to rent now, I don’t think. Live in SE not too far from London in a commuter town. Not a big house at all. Mortgage is £260 per month. Rent would be £1.400.

I’d love the flexibility of renting so being able to try new areas to live but practically that probably wouldn’t happen anyway.

We scrimped and saved and went without but didn’t begrudge this as we could see the bigger picture. In fact it was good fun as we were one of many with tight finances. Our friends and family were in the same boat. We had fun in other cheaper or free ways but have never believed you can buy happiness. Now our mortgage is 1/3 of the rent of others and we have some extravagant treats. A cleaner, the odd meal out, a cottage rather then camping, new lap top, hammock. We are still sensible with money as we can still see the bigger picture and already enjoy the experiences, family, friends and items we presently have.

You’d pay rent when you retire with housing benefit. I have a friend who’s worked part time for 30 years who will end up in exactly the same position as me at the end only she’s not had all the stress of home ownership

Once the government sold off council properties and stopped building new ones, renting became less appealing. If you could get long tenancies with controlled rents then I see no problem renting.

Brits are obsessed with owning houses though. It’s in our culture.

Our mortgage is cheaper than what we paid in rent so I don't think your reasoning applies to lots of home-owning situations.

Malificent7

I think your train of thought is quite silly OP sorry. Interest rates are negligibly low right now. My mortgages rate was 5.5% and this is not even the highest it went. Look at it like this. If you pay rent forever, you are flushing that money down the toilet. Also, how do you know rents won't rise? What will happen to you when you retire. If you get a full state pension it will be £800 wish a month. How are you going to pay rent out of that? At least if you are a pensioner and you have paid off your mortgage you will not have rent to sort out. Also, if you have your own house you can always release equity later on to give yourself some cash to spend on luxuries when you are older.

I regret ever spending a penny on rent. If I had my time again I'd do anything to get a deposit together and get on the property market. OP, also houses accumulate in value. I don't think we will have a repeat of this but in the 90's I bought a flat on the SE for 85K and sold it for 225K 16 years ago. The house I live in now has gone up 15% in value in the last 4 years. I could sell my house in the SE of England and buy 3 in my home town when I move back there when I am older.

You can’t compare buying in the 90s to 2020 though.

Our mortgage is less than it would be if we rented. Obviously this is due to a number of factors, such as deposit size, but I still think it's worth it for a number of reasons:

• no fear of eviction if landlord decides they want the house back
• no renting once retired
• you can paint and decorate the house how you like
• once the mortgage is paid off that's it. Renting will cost far more over a lifetime

You don't have to give up all luxuries if you stick to a budget and don't overstretch yourself.

I’d rather have a mortgage than private rent. However I have a lovely council property now so not sure if I’d want to swap that for a mortgage as I’m a low earner. At the moment I get all the maintenance done on the property which I’d never be able to afford myself if I owned. I have a secure tenancy so won’t have to move unless I do something antisocial. You usually get support before eviction if you’re having money problems too. The only disadvantage is you’re not getting an asset at the end and still have rent in retirement. I think if you have the earning power it is probably better to get a mortgage as you do get something at the end.

I’m 49, we paid ours off by 45, started at 25. For us it’s a type of investment or saving. We didn’t overstretch ourselves and didn’t get the mortgage on both salaries, only one, which meant it was easier to have sahp for a few years with our DC. If we had rented there’d be no end and we’d have nothing to pass on to our DC.

Absolutely worth it, we paid it off in 2007, 13 years and one house move with a fully paid for house, it was worth the struggle and it was a struggle at times.

I bought my first house back in October and the hardest part was definitely saving the deposit. But my mortgage is less than I paid in rent and the house I rented was quite a lot smaller. There are pros and cons to both but I didn't like the idea of still having to pay rent into retirement.