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Original poster

Mortgage/Rent as a % of household income

59 replies

Truestorypeeps · 26/04/2023 22:14

Financial experts think your rent/mortgage including mortgage insurance should not exceed 28% of your gross pay.

My mortgage was 20% of my net pay (after deductions), currently overpaying and it's 23.7% which feels manageable. For reference, I'm not including child support in my income figures (two children in Ireland, €280 per month).

What are your percentages, do you find your rent/mortgage affordable or a burden?

OP posts:
Tweezeme1 · 27/04/2023 16:18

Rent approx 45% of take home pay

ladygindiva · 27/04/2023 16:21

About 33% but I live in Cornwall where house prices match the pricey areas but wages don't. I think this is a typical figure amongst those I know.

MyDogStoodOnABee · 27/04/2023 16:25

0%

BetweenWhatAndWhat · 27/04/2023 16:26

Ours is 20% but we overpay to 33%. It's OK, but we live a pretty limited lifestyle due to ASD DC. If we wanted to go on fancy holidays or did a lot of socialising we probably couldn't do the overpayment but essentially it's a form of saving.

northernlola · 27/04/2023 17:32

7% which feels lovely but this is after years of heavily overpaying the mortgage. Really feel for those renting who are enduring price hikes. Some of the figures here are shocking.

Pootle40 · 27/04/2023 17:40

8% of gross. 13% of net.

Charcol · 28/04/2023 22:28

32%, and whats scary is remortage is due Oct 2023. wish me luck

WeightoftheWorld · 28/04/2023 22:34

Our mortgage is about 20 per cent of our net pay. But a large portion of my income is temporary and insecure and will likely end over the next two years or so. I'm currently using some of that extra income to overpay a little whilst we can, especially given our long fixed rate low interest deal.We also pay more than our mortgage in childcare fees every month though!

Sloop89 · 28/04/2023 22:38

Mortgage is 8% of our net pay. People who have a choice and continue to rent should pay attention to the much higher proportion they pay of pay.

ChocolateTea · 28/04/2023 22:40

Mine is about 25% of my net monthly salary. DP is a low earner, it’s about 20% of our joint net monthly. Tbh don’t even think about the mortgage. The food bill for feeding four adults weekly on the other hand comes to more than our monthly mortgage!

Nauticalthemedloo · 28/04/2023 22:46

11% of our net pay is standard mortgage payment, we are overpaying so 40% of net, should be paid off in 2.8 years if all goes to plan.

Anskl · 28/04/2023 22:52

Our mortgage is tiny, so just 3.5% of our net income although we are overpaying by £1000 per month, taking us to 28%.

Anskl · 28/04/2023 22:53

I meant 24%, not 28%...

TheAudie · 28/04/2023 22:54

20% of net pay.

prinnycessa · 28/04/2023 23:47

Our mortgage is 14% of our combined net income

dizzygirl1 · 29/04/2023 07:12

My rent is 42% of my net pay, but 33% of my whole income including UC and CB.
For me even though I'm on a really good wage (higher than average uk) I still rely on UC to keep me above water.

ThankmelaterOkay · 29/04/2023 07:22

28.8%. Rent. £1325 + storage £115 (ending this soon as they’ve hiked from £70 in 1.5 years), out of £5000 take home.

When we buy we’ll aim for £1200 repayments.

blibblibs · 29/04/2023 07:27

Mortgage is 91% of my take home pay, thankfully it's only 20% of our joint net pay.

BertieBotts · 29/04/2023 07:28

I never understand this whole experts say you need to spend X% on necessities - surely necessities cost what they cost?? If you have a choice over how much you spend then it's not a necessity. Whenever I see people saying things ought to be a percentage of income I think it's just insanely out of touch rich people thinking money is something to play with, not the source of stress and anxiety it is for a lot of people.

Currently ours is about 20%, we are lucky. There have been times when it was more like 40% or higher.

HAF1119 · 29/04/2023 07:39

Our mortgage is 25% of net pay, though it was 18% until the mortgage went up in Jan

ThankmelaterOkay · 29/04/2023 07:42

@BertieBotts agree.

Circumstances have a much bigger bearing on how much you should repay. Ie other debt, children, other costs in your life.

We are not going to have children, therefore we’ll pay as much off as we can without making our lives miserable.

So I don’t get why people gloat saying “9%” but then have a 30 year term? While rates are high you should pay it off ASAP.

CirreltheSquirrel · 29/04/2023 08:23

My mortgage is about 25% of single net income, but that includes a small monthly overpayment.

rattlinbog · 29/04/2023 08:43

34% of our joint salaries. It's a lot!

frozendaisy · 29/04/2023 09:37

About 10% of gross, but overpaying each bonus quarter as just want it paid off. Within 5 years .......

PrincessCalley · 29/04/2023 09:53

ThankmelaterOkay · 29/04/2023 07:42

@BertieBotts agree.

Circumstances have a much bigger bearing on how much you should repay. Ie other debt, children, other costs in your life.

We are not going to have children, therefore we’ll pay as much off as we can without making our lives miserable.

So I don’t get why people gloat saying “9%” but then have a 30 year term? While rates are high you should pay it off ASAP.

We are trying to pay off our mortgage in the next 2 to 3 years but the number of people who think we shouldn't has baffled me. To quote them "it's the cheapest money you'll ever get". These are people who have mortgages until they are 65 but we hope to have ours paid by the time we are 42.

Side note it's currently 14% of our net pay as we didn't take out a big mortgage but we also benefitted from the financial crash in 2008 as we built in 2010 when prices of everything was rock bottom.