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Original poster

how many times your income were you lent for your mortgage?

35 replies

sparklemagic · 21/06/2006 20:32

just wondering! I'm wondering about people who have fairly recently got a mortgage, or who know something about what's on offer nowadays - DH and I are looking to buy a house soon; we have a good deposit but in order to get any sort of house we will need over four and a half times our joint income - is this likely?

I know that as houses have gone up in price people have started talking about offering mortgages on 'affordability' rather than strictly 3x joint or whatever - is this really on offer?

thanks!

OP posts:
rosebea · 21/06/2006 20:35

depends where you get your mortgage from, we got our financial advisor to do the hunting for us. We could have got more than we did but if you start going for 4.5 times your wages you're likely to pay way more back and you'll probably have to self cert. We bought our house last November and I know that there are now alot more places willing to snoop through your outgoings and give you a mortgage based on that rather than income. Hope that helps

HelloDolly · 21/06/2006 20:47

You need crystal clear creit ratings to get over 3 times your salary and no other debts.

PanicPants · 21/06/2006 20:49

About 8 years ago I had 3x my salary alone

Original poster
sparklemagic · 21/06/2006 20:56

thanks guys. We did an application last year just to test out whether we'd be offered a mortgage with no problem and were told our credit check came back with a 'high pass' so I guess that bodes well for getting a bit more....

Will go through a mortgage adviser, thanks for that.

OP posts:
NotAnOtter · 21/06/2006 20:58

5.5 its torture

nooka · 21/06/2006 21:23

I've just got three and a half on a single income.

Original poster
sparklemagic · 21/06/2006 22:36

wow, there are certainly some deals out there then!

notanotter, I know that whatever we get will prob. be torture as well - isn't it crazy that we have to look at these sorts of figures just to get a very ordinary house - we're looking at a 3 bed terrace for 4.5 times our income!

OP posts:
Toothache · 21/06/2006 22:50

November last year I was offered 3.5times my single salary.

Toothache · 21/06/2006 22:51

You need to move to Scotland.... I got a 9 year old 4 bedroomed detached in a nice area of Falkirk for £145k!

Nemo1977 · 21/06/2006 22:57

WE were offered 4 x our joint income..although DH was a phd student at the time.

HelloDolly · 22/06/2006 10:59

Has it not occured to any of you that if you refused to pay these ridiculas prices then they would come down.
Who decides what a house is worth, not the unqualified estate agent YOU, if you won't pay it then they can't sell it.
Negotiate, look beyond the bullshit !!!!

Kathlean · 22/06/2006 11:15

OMG 5.5x your salary. Our mortgage is less than 2x DP's salary and that scares me.

tiredemma · 22/06/2006 11:16

ours was based on affordability not x income with HSBC.

ComeOVeneer · 22/06/2006 11:22

DH was just offered x6 his salary (mine isn't factored into our plans), this is based on the fact that he has a significant gauranteed pay rise annually, but it still means huge monthly repayments, so we said "no thankyou".

Piffle · 22/06/2006 11:29

3.5 and dp crapped himself about going over 3 x
its affordable, more than that and I think we'd be having to make some cutbacks elsewhere
ASk for an affordability assessment. This is how we decided how much we wanted to borrow

southeastastra · 22/06/2006 11:52

3.5 anything over that is crazy! beware there will be a crash in about 3 years!

HelloDolly · 22/06/2006 11:58

Prices are down 8% in Chester already, i doubt it'll take 3 years.
Interest rates will be up by the end of this year, for godsakes don't over stretch yourselves.

CountessDracula · 22/06/2006 12:02

Ours is less than twice our joint incomes.

It kind of depends whether you are repayment or interest only, if you are repayment then you always have the option of a temp switch to interest only if one of you loses your job. If you are interest only then you have no fall-back position

Nemo1977 · 22/06/2006 12:03

in terms of affordability we actually pay £100 a month less on our mortgage than we did on our rent. Also lucky in the fact that we got our house very cheap compared to the market at the time and even more so now so have doubled our money at least.

Bozza · 22/06/2006 12:04

Was about 2.5 but we kept quiet about the fact that I was pg. So income went down. Now is less than 2 though even though I am still part time.

jura · 22/06/2006 12:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

GDG · 22/06/2006 12:24

Our income goes up every year (or has done so far for the past 5 or so) but when we got our mortgage recently it was about 3.5x

We don't find it a struggle at all, it's more than affordable.

I suppose it depends what it's 3x of iyswim. If you earn £10,000 a year, that's not huge amounts to live on anyway, even if you have a small mortgage. If you earn £100K a year and have a large mortgage, you've still got a lot left over to spend iyswim. Not very clear that but I know what I'm on about!

GDG · 22/06/2006 12:24

ANd this is why I think multiples are a bit of a silly way to lend and affordability is a much better indicator.

GDG · 22/06/2006 12:26

rosebea - you don't necessarily have to self cert to get 4 times or more. Northern Rock lend based on credit rating - if it's high they will lend you 4.5 times you salary no problem. The mortgage we were offered was excellent too - low rate etc. It was perfectly acceptable.

Roobie · 22/06/2006 12:26

Ours is 2.5 times our joint income. It was x3 but I've now increased my hours to 4 days/week. We were careful to base it on my part-time hours even though I was still working full time when we took it out.

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