What's a sensible monthly mortgage repayment on a salary of £34k?

[MollyMortgage]

Apologies for double posting. I just posted this in Property but decided Money is probably better, on second thoughts!

Just a really quick Q.

I know talking in percentages isn't that helpful as if you earn megabucks, spending 50% of your net income on a mortgage is fine.

Am roughly guiding myself by the rule of 'no more than a third' though.

If you earnt £34,000 pa and took home just over £2k a month (£2,020 to be precise, once tax and pension have been taken out), what do you think is a sensible-ish amount to devote to your mortgage?

Would £600-£650 a month be okay?

I think the ideal would obviously be around £500, but I'm going to see a mortgage advisor and wondering what would be a sensible 'ceiling'. I don't have an enormous deposit, so the monthly payments are likely to be high-ish.

My scheduled monthly outgoings are roughly £300 bills and utilities a month, plus £65 travel.

£365 (bills & travel) + £650 (mortgage) deducted from net monthly income of £2020 would leave me with £1,005.00 a month to spend on sundries and food, or roughly £250 a week.

Does that sound okay to you? (And might that sound okay to mortgage lenders?)

NB. I don't have significant debt, or kids (or even insignificant kids!).

£651 would give you£130,000 at 3.5% over 25 years. Would you be able to buy something for that where you live. That does not include any deposit..

When you say you don't have significant debt, how much do you actually have, and over what term?
Are you single?
When my salary was 34k I found I could live comfortably with a mortgage of £650/month but had no debt, no car, no children so could be as frugal as I needed to be from time to time.
Though I generally didn't need to be.
I just had an interview with a mortgage adviser today for a new mortgage, he went through our spending in immense detail, it was really helpful and he was able to talk about what might be realistic without any commitment. (First direct).

Depending on your credit score you should be able to borrow that ( going by the MSE website I have no expert knowledge).

Different fir different people. You need to work out how much you spend, how much you have for paying mortgage

Thanks Twilight - my deposit would be roughly £15k. Could you factor that in? (Just getting my head round mortgages).

Yes, I live far away from London and could definitely find a house for around that, so that's sounding good!

As a family of 4 on Dps salary of around that we are comfortable with mortgage payments of £600 :). We do live fairly frugally though and no other debts

Thanks all! Sunny I just have one credit card on 0% for 28 months (about £2k debt).

Bring that is encouraging, thanks!

Sounds absolutely fine! A lot of people on that salary pay much more than that in rent (I paid £750 for just a room in a flatshare when I was earning around that!)

If you had 15k deposit and wanted to buy for £130,000 at 3.5% over 25 years would be around £575 a month. The MSE website has lots of good mortgage/ borrowing calculators if you want to play around with the figures such a interest rate or mortgage term.

Depending on your age you may want to pay over more or less years.

If you are a first time buyer have you looked to see if you can get anything out of the 'help to buy' shenanigans?

Thanks Twilight - yes I've been looking into Help to Buy shenanigans . The only issue is the interest rates seem quite high and they're coming to an end in 2016, unless you go new build. That's very helpful though and I'll go and play on the Money Saving Expert calculators!

I earn roughly the same. My mortgage payments are £600 and I have childcare costs to pay for too.

I have a strict budget but can still afford a couple of takeaways a month.