Londoners with a mortgage

[beingnosey]

Not sure if this is the best place to post this but here goes, please be kind this isn't thread to boast, I am genuinely interested.

A London friend commented the other day that another local friend pays over £2000 a month on their mortgage, implying it was a lot! I was really surprised by her thinking this was a lot as she also owns in London (same area)

Question is to Londoners who have a mortgage, is £2000 pm really a lot?

We pay nearly £2,500 a month (zone 2), we overpay and hope to have paid off our mortgage in the next 6-7 years when dh and I will be mid 50's. Our current LTV is 25% so not in a bad position as we bought before property prices went super crazy in London. We wouldn't be able to afford what we have now. Anyway our DC are only 12 and 10 so things are only going to cost more but we're keen to slow down sooner rather than later.

Anyway, I know it's all relative to what we earn etc but are we really paying a lot in London terms? Interested to compare your monthly mortgage and your ages when you hope to have it paid off.

Thanks

£2000 per month seems pretty typical among people my age (mid-30s) who bought property in the last 5-10 years (ie after prices went a bit crazy).

Well, it depends on how much you overpay, doesn't it? .

We overpay on top of our monthly repayment 😬

Our basic payment is a bit over 2k and I think that's a lot as it affords us a luxury house (large property with a gym, cinema room etc). So I'd say that's a lot as it isn't something that most people can afford. I imagine that to service such a mortgage and live comfortably you probably need to be in the top few % of earners.

Ours is £2k a month and it was ok until we had children. When I go back to work after maternity leave we'll be looking at £2k+ a month on nursery as well. Lean times ahead! I also feel a bit sick when I read about people's mortgages in other parts of the country.

Oh, and our £2k was for an absolute wreck which needs £££ for renovations as well!

Sorry, should have said that we're 39 and 43 and have many years until we pay it off. We went for a fixed five year deal in late 2014 as we though interest rates would really go up (didn't see Brexit coming!).

On the plus side, we have a lot of equity in the house and it'll be worth a whole lot more when we finish renovations.

To me it sounds a lot, but out in zone 5 we pay around £850 a month and have about 20% loan to value.

It’s all relative though isn’t it.
If you can afford it then it’s fine.

Mortgage is actually £1200 a month - but overpay £1000 a month and going to increase by another £700 a month (maximum can overpay) as want to pay off as early as possible. In answer to your question - I don’t think £2k a month mortgage in London is a lot - know some paying more and a few like me paying a bit less! My Ltv is about 60%.

It's a hell of a lot of money but, in housing terms in London, it's what it costs if you bought in recent years.

Ours is less than that and we overpay as much as possible. Although our LTV is reassuring - about 20% - it's still a huge amount of money that we owe.

An amount that would have been able to buy the house we live in twice over outright 20 years ago.

Ours is just under that, but on much too long a term (past retirement ), even though we have high LTV. We're very fortunate to have another flat, but altogether it feels like too much debt, so we're thinking of selling it to try to get the mortgage on the house down.

Bloody London.

Just under £3k 4 bd terrace zone 2. Bought 5yes ago so stil quite a long way to go! It’s come down slightly as we have just remortgaged and kcnocked 400 a month off. That’s a repayment mortgage.

We overpay into an offset account each month although it often gets used for other stuff. But we try!

Seems a lot to me as I couldn't afford it! Ours is about £1400, zone 3.
I guess I think if you could rent for a similar price per month its quite cheap, if you're paying more than rent would be, it's expensive.

Is anyone quite stretched for a place in outer London or is it mostly people who want to live quite central?

We're in zone 5/6 and quite stretched, although (as above) it's the combination of mortgage, nursery fees and renovation costs which are making things very tight. That said, it's a lovely part of SW London and definitely worth it (I think, maybe )

Age is also a factor. Many of my London friends bought their family sized homes in their mid 40s and have 20 year mortgages which means repayments are slightly higher each month.

Without any knowledge of the amount you owe, term and interest rate, how can anyone make a reasonable comparison

In Zone 6 and we pay £699 per month. Been here 14 years, though

Around 2k here, zone 5, but we overpaid and have a shorter term. If we stretched to the max length and didn’t overpay we could drive down to about 1.3k

We pay about that. I haven’t got a clue what our friends pay, it has never come up in conversation. Should be able to take a chunk off it in the next few months to take it down to about £1500 a month. We’ve 60% equity in the house so could sell and buy outright if we had to

It's all relative surely?

We pay £5,000 a month in rent. Zone 2.

Well, as others have said, this is completely relative.
Considering the vast majority of people don't even bring home £2.5K a month, then of course it is a lot - or just a pie in the sky figure for most people. That said, you presumably wouldn't have been able to take on the mortgage unless you had very high incomes, and, if your income is very high, then you can cope with a high mortgage payment. It therefore doesn't really matter how many other people can afford the same.

Which part of London do you live in @JoJoSM2 ?

Twinkle, SM2 so zone 5 in the south.

Your house sound lush! @jojoSM2