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Original poster

Mortgage cost

86 replies

Cookie105 · 20/10/2023 20:19

Just wondering how much do people spend a month on their mortgage ideally people with a household salary of £55,000 ish.

OP posts:
KentishMama · 21/10/2023 08:29

20% of take-home pay is ideal. 30% doable if the house isn't a money pit. 50% is mad.

decionsdecisions62 · 21/10/2023 08:32

On another thread I recently posted that mortgage payment should be around 20% ideally and was shot down in flames and told that I was out of touch!

Gameofmoans81 · 21/10/2023 08:33

Ours is about to go up to £1250 a month 😩
Household income is £80k and it still feels tight

mrsed1987 · 21/10/2023 08:36

Household income about 76k, mortgage is is £890 a month, that's 205k with 24 years left to run

Dibblydoodahdah · 21/10/2023 08:38

Household income of around £150k. Mortgage payments have just gone up from £2000 to £2600.

Elephantscantjump · 21/10/2023 08:42

My income is £43k, mortgage is £700

Redlocks30 · 21/10/2023 08:44

Household income is £85k and our mortgage was £350 until recently when we paid it off.

My work colleague is on £60k joint household income and is looking to buy a first home with her partner-they are looking at £2000 monthly payments. We were v lucky to buy when we did.

Russoooooo · 21/10/2023 08:46

Unexpectedlysinglemum · 21/10/2023 00:13

I think none of these pp live in London?

I suspect you’re right as not many families in a £55k income can afford a mortgage in London.

In the context of the question, though, I don’t think it matters where we are. She asked how big the mortgage is in comparison to a salary, not how much we pay.

Blackbinbag · 21/10/2023 10:05

Heatherbell1978 · 21/10/2023 06:49

You just need to get a spreadsheet and work out your incomings and outgoings. A rule of thumb is that mortgage payments shouldn't exceed 25% of your net monthly pay but obviously there's a difference if your net monthly pay is £2k vs £10k. With the higher mortgage how much do you have left over every month after all bills? Any future plans to take into account that could change that? Does it leave you room to save? Are you contributing to a pension? Only you can answer all these things as your situation is unique.

Show quote history

Thanks for this. On paper we can afford it and the mortgage would be 25% of our take home but the increase is still an extremely scary thought! According to my calculations we’d still have over £1,000 after bills and food. But that seems too much so I’m worried I’ve missed something massive haha.

CrabbiesGingerBeer · 21/10/2023 10:06

I earn about this (pre tax) and I spent the last three years paying £1100 a month to try and pay the mortgage off.

The required amount was £500, the rest was overpayment.

It was hard and that’s with knowing I could stop whenever I liked. No holidays abroad, no London theatre tickets (I used to stay over in the West End for dinner and a show), clothes bought off eBay, no more nice little lunches in cafes.

I don’t think I could have managed £1500 (and frankly, if COVID hadn’t made it impossible to do a lot of things, I might have cracked at an early stage). I know some people in the South have no choice and I find that to be horrendous!

MidnightMeltdown · 21/10/2023 11:16

KentishMama · 21/10/2023 08:29

20% of take-home pay is ideal. 30% doable if the house isn't a money pit. 50% is mad.

Because 20% is virtually impossible for anyone buying a property these days. Perfectly reasonable for those who have owned for a long time, but not recent buyers taking on a new mortgage.

When I first I bought just over 3 years ago and my mortgage was around 33% of take home. However, due to wage rises, it's now less than 30%. The % of take home decreases every year

Haveallthesongsbeenwritten · 21/10/2023 11:17

Cookie105 · 20/10/2023 20:19

Just wondering how much do people spend a month on their mortgage ideally people with a household salary of £55,000 ish.

Our mortgage is £1200, combined salary of £76k

genesis92 · 21/10/2023 11:18

TheBabylonian · 20/10/2023 22:45

Well that’s over £3k take home so I would expect £1.5k a month. That would be normal.

That's ridiculous. You'd have nothing left after food, bills etc

MidnightMeltdown · 21/10/2023 11:18

What is affordable depends on many things, particularly number of people/dependent children in the household.

MidnightMeltdown · 21/10/2023 11:28

That's ridiculous. You'd have nothing left after food, bills etc

@genesis92 😂 You do realise that low earners barely take home £1.5k a month, let alone having that 'left' for food and bills!

Personally, I wouldn't choose to spend 50% of my salary on my mortgage, but some people don't have much choice, and plenty of people pay that in rent.

KentishMama · 21/10/2023 11:33

I agree that 20% is very difficult in many parts of the country now, but not impossible. There are so many factors - location, number of people/ children, number of rooms needed. We had a very tiny, run down ex-council mid-terrace in a pretty horrible location for our first house because we didn't want to take the risk of committing too much of our income to the mortgage. Sometimes you have to be realistic rather than ambitious with what you can afford.

Right now we have a Victorian money pit, and things are tight even though the mortgage is only 20% of net wages. The house eats money for breakfast, and we should probably walk away from it. But we love it too much 😂

Isyesterdaytomorrowtoday · 21/10/2023 11:44

How the £55k is split between earners makes a difference to how much it is after tax so I’d say a third of take home as a guide would be where I’d be comfortable, any more would be too high. If you are also paying significant childcare I’d probably want less

ChevyCamaro · 21/10/2023 11:54

Because 20% is virtually impossible for anyone buying a property these days. Perfectly reasonable for those who have owned for a long time, but not recent buyers taking on a new mortgage.

This. I'm quite shocked by the number of people with 4/5 k take-home a month paying £700 and worrying it's too much. My mortgage is about 35% of my income, and my income aint that much, because I haven't had the mortgage for that long.
And yeah, after food, bills and clothing there's nowt left.
The alternative though is to pay 40% of my income in rent, so...

eurochick · 21/10/2023 11:58

The rule of thumb I was given when I was starting out was a third for housing, a third for bills and discretionary spending and a third into savings. I think 50% of salary on a mortgage is a bit precarious.

Laurdo · 21/10/2023 12:07

Has recently just gone up £300 to £1050. Combined income of £63k which will go up to £67k next month.

tennaeine · 21/10/2023 12:10

Our household income is pretty much exactly that and mortgage is just over £600

ABCXYZ17 · 21/10/2023 12:15

£690 up from £490 as I borrowed additional money for work on the house. I overpay by £200 a month so £890 on mortgage. Household income 80k. I would want to go above £1000 at any point as it would mean cutting back on holidays etc and I also want to be a position where I can earn less money in the future. Fixed for 5 years last year so very low interest rate currently. Currently saving so that at the end of the current term I can pay off a chunk and get my monthly payment to around £500.

Thinkingofnothing · 21/10/2023 12:20

We have about 65k (before tax). Mortgage is 580, however that is on a low interest rate. When we remortgage if rates are around 5% I think it will probably be a few hundred more.

house is worth around 250k (we live in the east mids so not London or Home Counties etc).

UnderHisEyeOverMyDeadBody · 21/10/2023 12:22

Single income, c.56k with current mortgage deal ending shortly (£800pm) jumping to £1400pm.
Bricking it is an understatement.

DontBeBitterGlitter2023 · 21/10/2023 12:24

Im single with an income of £50k (£2600 a month after deductions) - my mortgage is £652 a month. Used to be £402 but after five years my house price had shot up so i remortgaged and borrowed extra to do renovations