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Original poster

Quick survey re Mortgages

60 replies

Skribble · 13/09/2006 23:09

How do you afford your present mortgage?

Was it a 95% mortgage based purely on your wages? Joint or single wage?

Did you save up specially to put down a bigger deposit?

Did you make enough profit on your last hose sale to allow a bigger budget this time?

Have you got family money? Like inheritance or Mum and Dad helping out?

Why do I ask? Well DH is now on what I think is a decent wage, but we still can afford a decent mortgage, we will make about £10,000 on this house which will help. Just wonder how do people afford all these houses at £250,000 upwards. We live in a fairly cheap area compared to some areas in England.

Go on, how do you afford where you live???

OP posts:
foxinsocks · 14/09/2006 11:39

dh's salary only goes up substantially when he changes jobs (otherwise just inflation really) but we manage (just about). The theory is that I will eventually be back at work because at the moment, we can manage but it certainly isn't easy.

LIZS · 14/09/2006 11:41

We've had this house for 12 years. The mortgage (90% then) was based on both our wages then but over time dh's wage has risen with inflation and promotion so I currently don't have to work as interest rates have actually fallen. Repayments are therfore lower in relation to our income than they originally were. We also have accumulated more equity in this house but we'll use that as a deposit when we eventually move (hopefully soon!)and then have to take on a much higher mortgage as property prices have all moved on relative to each other. All parents still living so no windfalls.

portonovo · 14/09/2006 11:46

I meant to say, that although we were both working when we took out our mortgage and only one of us is now, interest rates at the time were 14% whereas now they're tiny in comparison.

So although house prices are much higher now, I'm not sure affordability is more of a problem. As long as interest rates don't go that high again of course...

mumblechum · 14/09/2006 13:50

We also moved from north to south, moving from fab victorian vicarage to boring 50s box, and tripling mortgage at the same time. Found it v. hard at first, had £400k mortgage (7 yrs ago), but it gradually got easier & now mort. doesn't seem too bad at all (about £2k pm). We've made £500k on the value, but that's totally irrelevant if we buy elsewhere in this area. If rates go up, we'll all be stuffed, so we're now trying to pay the mortgage off completely over the next 5 yrs (beans on toast every night,but hopefully will be more secure at the end of that).

beckybrastraps · 14/09/2006 13:51

£2K per MONTH?

Made £500K?

Blimey!!!

mumblechum · 14/09/2006 13:57

yeah, but remember the beans! maybe that's why we don't have any friends!

Rathernottellyoumyname · 14/09/2006 13:59

This is my first house, no mortgage, cost almost 500K
My father paid for the lot plus the furniture
I know I am very lucky

beckybrastraps · 14/09/2006 13:59

Well, as I said, we'll be increasing our mortgage soon (I hope), and will eating beans into our dotage!

beckybrastraps · 14/09/2006 14:00

rathernottellyoumyname - now I'm REALLY !!!

mumblechum · 14/09/2006 14:01

!!!!!!

Kaz33 · 14/09/2006 14:07

30% /deposit - equity from two flat sales in London in the last seven years. First was a wee scraggy flat in Hoxton that nearly doubled in value in 2 years. Took £70k equity out of that one and the second a not so good deal in Earls Court (4 years and roughly £40K equity).

1 income now - roughly 4 times DH salary. Mostly capital repayment, but 30% interest only.

Moved last year, so a bit tight at the moment. But we are living exactly where we want to in an expensive part of SE england. No intention of moving and when we can afford it we will extend.
When both the kids are in school I will do something to earn a bit more dosh.

Sunnysideup · 14/09/2006 14:22

This might sound bizarre, but I'm really NOT jealous of rathernot; there is a real, real satisfaction in looking around and knowing that everything in my house and my house itself, was bought about through DH and I using our own brains, abilities, and hard work; it's really satisfying.

I'm sure I wouldn't turn down a bit of extra money of course, but I can certainly see that I have a level of self esteem in my life due to what we've managed to acheive (not that our house is posh, it's a two bed terrace! but even this has been a hard slog to get while at the same time trying to be a SAHM).

in answer to the op, our mortgage was based on a horrendous 4.8 x our joint income; we are not big earners. It's a struggle to pay it at present while ds is young. We have no family help. We sold our last house so had £15,000 deposit to put down but this has only bought us a two bed terrace (however it's in a nice place by the sea )

Gobbledigook · 14/09/2006 14:27

I agree with you sunnysideup - dh is one of those people who would just like to win the lottery and not have to work for it. Don't get me wrong - a lottery win would be nice - but I do get a lot of satisfaction out of working what for we have. It's the way I was brought up - you want something, you work for it.

FioFio · 14/09/2006 14:30

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Sunnysideup · 14/09/2006 14:36

exactly gdg.

FioFio · 14/09/2006 14:37

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Steppy1 · 14/09/2006 14:41

...we bought at the right place at the right time and have stayed put for 10 years so when we move further west (cheaper houses !) we can get rid of mortgage...hooray

......Well that was the intention instead we seem to have ended up with two mortgages, one buy to let and one for what will be the faimly home.....hmmmmm not quite sure how that happened really ....

beckybrastraps · 14/09/2006 14:42

No, it's all very worthy, working for your own home etc, etc, but I'm still !!

CheesyFeet · 14/09/2006 15:22

Was it a 95% mortgage based purely on your wages? Joint or single wage? 95% Mortgage, both salaries considered but could have done it on dh's salary alone as the house was cheap.

Did you save up specially to put down a bigger deposit? No, dh paid the deposit from his existing savings as I didn't have a bean.

Did you make enough profit on your last hose sale to allow a bigger budget this time? This is our first house. We have made about £60-70K in equity though and have paid about 5K off the total loan (not including interest) so if we were really really lucky we could be 75K up if we sold the house.

Have you got family money? Like inheritance or Mum and Dad helping out? Not directly with buying the house but was given money to buy white goods etc

Why do I ask? Even though we both work full time and have a reasonable amount of equity in the house we can't afford a 250K house as there's no way we could keep up the mortgage payments - assuming we could get a mortgage on a 250K house (joint income circa 40K)

Go on, how do you afford where you live??? We are lucky in one way to live in a fairly cheap part of the country but this is bad in a way as if were to move anywhere else we would struggle to get the same size house for the money.

Original poster
Skribble · 14/09/2006 15:48

Interesting reading, quite a lot of people only managed to buy because of money they made on selling previous houses.

OK as I won't make money when selling this one, what job can I get with a £45,000 salary???

OP posts:
Piffle · 14/09/2006 15:58

We made a bigger profit on our old houses
Dp and I both had houses in separate counties.
I sold mine and put some of the money into doing up his flat, we got top £ for his flat. He had bought it afte the negative equity house price crash, so got it for next to nothing - made a really decent amount on it - itwhat he bought it - we were both very fortunate IMO
Our mortgage is only for 50% of our property
We thus could afford a nice big house - although still got mortgage for just under 3x dp's income as I am SAHM
We live in a very good value semi rural area nationally speaking
it appalled us that in Hants where we had lived we could not afford a decent sized house even with our equity.
Crikey knows how 1st time buyers get on the ladder at all.

Tinker · 14/09/2006 16:00

Next house will cost about that much. can only afford it because have been in current house for 13 years so have a subtantial deposit. Me and partner not on staggering salaries. So, luck - I bought a house long enough ago.

LIZS · 14/09/2006 16:58

Skribble we had made a loss on our previous property - bought 1990, sold 1994 - so had saved to pay off the negative equity and for a 10% deposit on this one.

CountessDracula · 14/09/2006 17:09

oh god I have no idea how first time buyers do it now. I think I would rent tbh if I were ftb now.

beckybrastraps · 14/09/2006 17:56

Having gone through an affordibility calculator with our mortgage provider, even the big lenders are prepared to lend WAY too much. Their definition of what we could afford to borrow and ours were wildly at odds.

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