AIBU to ask if you could afford the house you live in?

[IamnotH]

Just had house valued for remortgage and it's transpired that we could actually afford the house we live in!

Bought in 2016 for £185k. Borrowed an extra £50k for building work. House just valued at £380k.

This isn't a stealth boast- we're an average nuclear family, 2 kids, both worlds full time. Our house isn't massive (SE)- just a normal 3 bed. It actually means we're stuck here unless we move areas which we don't want to do.

AIBU to ask if you could afford the house you live in if you were to buy it now?

Yes. I think. We remortgaged other properties which have also gained in price, and I wasn’t working at that time.

Well we only bought it a year and a half ago (as FTB, in SE England), so I doubt the value has changed that much in that time. In fact if we tried to sell it now people would probably be suspicious and push the price down!

We bought our house 4 years ago as a bit of a wreck and have been picking through it in that time, so it’s nearly finished.

And we probably couldn’t afford it as the finished article but that’s exactly why we bought a do-er upper - to get us the house we wanted but couldn’t afford to buy already done

No chance as I do hardly any hours now and our house’s value has skyrocketed. We had a lot of equity in it anyway, due to previous moves/inheritance etc so couldn’t have afforded it when we bought it without that either.

Yes. But we’ve had significant increase in income since then. Amoung our friends who bought, a few are in our situation, a couple have continued to save at least as much as they did pre-mortgage when they needed a deposit and they could probably afford the same or better (neither of them have had kids) and most are in your situation and could not. All in city areas that have gone up significantly.

I lived in NW England and owned a home back in 1999. We purchased a new-build for £92,500. Everyone told us that was a huge price tag for the area.

The house was sold for £185,000 in 2004 only five years later.

My husband and I have spoken about returning to England in the next few years and buying in the same area. One of our former neighbors had a house just like ours only two houses away just sold theirs for £340,000.

There would be no way we could afford our old house now!

Nope. House has pretty much doubled in price in 12 years, of course our salaries haven’t.

It’s worth asking the question because it highlights that if it is impossible for most of us in our houses to afford a mortgage now on the same house, how the hell do we expect younger generations to, and that it’s time the inequality was addressed rather than lecturing them on their coffee and avocado consumption.

@notalwaysalondoner

I'm the opposite - we bought a new build flat in London 5 years ago and it's the same price now as it was then. It's hard not to be jealous of friends who've made tens or hundreds of thousands in that time window doing nothing, just sitting on a property. I do find it bizarre that capital gains on a first home aren't taxed, considering you do literally nothing to earn them.

See it's this kind of thought. It's not 'good' for them their houses increased. It's bad for everyone. They don't actually have that money because it's in their home and they need their home to live in. It's fake capital.

House prices, and rents, staying steady would help everyone.

I rent in London. In a nice Victorian terrace in a good area, but with a number of other people. No fucking way could I afford to buy this house

One down the street sold for £1.4m a couple of years back, and all houses on this street are basically identical. Assume it'd be about the same now.

Yes - I could afford the same or better as I had a massive deposit (90%) based on moving from an expensive area to a less expensive one.

bought for 112k 12 yrs ago and is now worth about 200k.. However, we have spent about 70k making it more suitable for our family. Tbh I have no idea how we managed to get a mortgage for 112k so no way could we do it for 200k!! I am glad we did though. Our mortgage is 400 a month, we overpay by about 200 and that is still less than we would pay in private rent. Crazy!

Totally ridiculous but bought our house in 2003 when we could just about afford it for Euro 400,000 .It is now worth Euro 1,2 million .I don't know how on earth anyone can afford to pay that much.Its our home and we won't be selling.

No. Bought in 2015 for 205K.

It's now worth 265k, DH has had to take a big pay cut, and my salary has not increased the way house prices have.

OP can you ask to get your original post amended?

I only bought mine last year so I doubt it's gone up much in value since. So probably!

I'm sitting in the house we completed on 6 weeks ago, so I would say yes

Yes, but we only bought it 18 months ago.

yes, i bought mine for cash 6 months ago

Bought our Current house in 2018, just had valued at approx £95k more than we paid, I wouldn't be comfortable paying a mortgage of that size now.

We could yes. However the type of house I want? No. Not without having a mortgage payment for over a grand which I'm not going to do. Just need to stay here longer and save more money for a bigger deposit, and then keep being priced out. Love this country.

Nope. Bought for £130K in 2000, now worth £600K. My wages have remained roughly the same as went part time, DH's have increased but not by that much.

No.
Bought house for £385k 10 years ago, now worth 850k. Tiny London terrace house. I only earn £30k now so absolutely no way could I afford it now. Mortgage payments only £500 a month though, so about 25% of what it would cost to rent this place. The whole system is totally screwed and I personally hope property prices come down.

Unfortunately not. We rent ours, and one two doors away has just gone on the market for £210,000. It's a 3 bed semi with gardens and garage. There's no way we could ever save a big enough deposit, despite being able to afford the mortgage

Our house has gone up £200,000 in 5 years. No, we would now not be able to afford it.

We bought our old house for 220k. When we sold it, we got 400k for it and there is no way that we could afford that now (even before we both lost our jobs due to the pandemic).

We sold it and used the equity to buy a cheaper house in another part of the country. I've no idea how people manage now where we used to live - we scraped together for a very small house, but it would be impossible for people on the equivalent of our salaries to buy there now.