To ask what mortgage payments you'd be happy with?

[lemon88]

100k joint take home (roughly £5000 a month after pension deductions). Nursery fees of around £1,000 a month. Worried we're overstretching!

7k take home, 1800 on mortgage (across 20 yr term) & 1k nursery fees. Other outgoings are between 1-1.5k per month.

I’d probably only want to do 1200 max on your salaries.

We moved from a one bed flat to a 4 bed house and it was the best decision we made. We won’t have to upsize and will only move for our forever home now once we relocate.

Our take home fluctuates between £4600 and £5000 a month, our mortgage is £920, we save £800-£1000 a month between various pots, no HP/lease and just one car owned outright. DH cycles everywhere and I've moved to an office close to home so our petrol outgoings are less than yours. Nursery is around £400 a month now hours have kicked in (our nursery doesn't stretch and charges all kinds of top ups, he only goes twice a week) . We also have an old house that always seems to bed something and a cat who keeps destroying things or getting ill and costing us a fortune in vet bills the expensive insurance finds a reason not to cover. It feels like we should be better off than we are (I recognise we are very privileged to save as much as we do).
In your shoes I wouldn't go above £1500 if you are planning to take two mat leaves in the next five years, I got an above average package and still lost £26k in a year of mat leave, do you need to take that into account too.

Agree £1500 max. Net pay is just over £5k post pensions here with £800 nursery fees and our mortgage is £1150 which feels ok.

We are similar to you and pay 1500 a month. Wouldn’t manage with much more.

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Our household income is less than yours. Mortgage is £875, around 20% of take home. We fixed after DC 3 was born and planned the 5 year fix would see us through to school age and the reduction in childcare would help to offset potential rises in interest rates, also dropped the term whilst rates are low so have a bit of wiggle room to increase if needed. Bought 7 years ago when prices were much more affordable and we only had 1 child. It’s a 4 bed detached and the bills were a bit of a shock when we jumped up, the council tax is increasing year on year as is everything else. We based the borrowing on husbands salary alone, he’s since had pay rises, promotion and its affordable, I only work PT and was able to take full maternity on both occasions which felt like a real luxury. On your income, like you and other PP’s have said, would suggest no more than £1,500 if you can. Think a general guide is to have mortgage repayments no more than 30% of salary. Would have really struggled if we maxed out. Do you have scope to buy a doer upper and build your own equity? If you Google BBC mortgage calculator you can play about with different figures and interest rates to get an idea of repayments. If you can, it sometimes pays to throw extra on the deposit, it can push you into the next loan to value amount. Sometimes it only takes a bit extra to pull you under the 90% loan to value amount, with some lenders even 89.5% will give you better rates (at least it did, I’ll have a look). The Halifax mortgage calculator is good to try different terms and deposits etc.