Mortgage: What % of your salary is your mortgage?

[Gansy]

We want a bigger house and need to stay in the same area.
The 3 beds cost are avg £520k.
This is also the max me and DH could achieve with borrowing, but would mean repayment of £2300/month which is just under half of our combined incomes - 47% of salaries. After bills and childcare, it would leave £1.2k which would could manage. But wouldn’t leave a lot of wriggle for saving.

This question is for people who have a similar income, don’t have a lot of equity or are not on the ladder for a long time: how big a your mortgage?
is this high a mortgage common?
Is this manageable?

Ours is about 17% of our combined net income.

I don't think it is particularly uncommon and isn't a new phenomenon. I was talking to my cousin a few weeks ago and saying my mortgage in the 90s was 50% of my salary and she was saying at that time it was her full salary but she'd bought with her partner who was on a similar salary.

You need to consider two things. Firstly what if interest rates go up? We got very used to low interest rates for a long time. The recent rise wasn't a 'blip'. It was the long spell of low interest rates that was unusual. I remember back in the mid 90s when interest rates shot up on 'Black Wednesday' thinking 'this is it, I'm just going to have to hand in my keys'. If you have a fix, how long is it for and what will you do if it goes up after that?

Secondly, if either of you lose your jobs or are unable to work for some reason, how will you cope, especially as you're unlikely to be able to build up your savings?

None of those things might happen but do give it at least some thought.

47% is high. I would be surprised if the bank would lend this to you.

What’s the likelihood of you increasing your income?

64% now

I know it’s not uncommon but I really wouldn’t sleep at night with that level of commitment

It would be unbearable if interest rates go up even a little bit, or if house prices crash

I think you would need to factor in emergency funds, if work needed to be done on the house too. Would you gave spare cash for anything that breaks for.example boiler or anything else.

Typo have

Ummmmmmm
express one sixth as a percentage
it used to be much higher - easily a third.

When we first bought 50% of our combined income, we’ve moved since then and earn more and it is now about 25% - at one point when I was part time it was probably closer to 60%!

Never more than a 3rd. Now paid off. Our choice was to buy a more modest home

Our current mortgage is 30%ish of our combined take home income. Which is shit really as after that, bills and nursery fees etc, we literally have a few hundred spare each month. Saving is impossible. The mortgage has risen by about £600per month though, which is a lot. I know of plenty others whose mortgage has increased by more than that!

Single person here and mine is 30% of my salary

23%. Feels bad enough.

Ours is about 18% of our take home income. We have considered upsizing as we could afford more but I like knowing its manageable so I don't think we will. Anything above about 40% would really worry me although I think our first purchase was somewhere in that region.

My husband's monthly income fluctuates as a sole trader but I think our mortgage is roughly 20% of our average monthly income. I wouldn't want to go higher than that, but that is partly due to the flux in income (Jan/Feb/March tend to be quite a bit lower than the rest if the year). We have just moved and doubled our mortgage - previously it was less than 20% but I also went full time at work to cover the mortgage increase so we haven't felt it too much. I would be wary of mortgage repayments being anything higher than a 3rd of our average monthly income even if his pay was consistent but I'm quite risk averse.

Roughly 16.5%

Mine is ~12%, but there's only 4 years left......(counting down the months!) At its highest I'd say it was 30%. 47% is very high to me.

DS has just got his first mortgage, it’s going to be roughly 50% of his and gf’s salary, although he gets 4 bonuses each year. Fortunately he hasn’t used all his savings for a deposit, but I expect once they’ve paid utilities and Council Tax and food, there isn’t going to be a lot left after, but DH and I were in a far worse situation when we purchased our first property.

My mortgage is fairly new as we couldn't afford to buy until recently. Mortgage is about €500 more than I make a month.
Thankfully DH makes more than me.

I honestly don't think you would pass the affordability aspect, have you tried. We couldn't so are stuck renting till we die probably

Ours is 6.3%. That suggestions seems impossibly high.

Just over 10% - I think. We are not far from paying it off though, and have benefitted from a 10 year fixed rate back when rates were very low...

I think your age makes a big difference - also if you have childcare costs.

We once had childcare costs of three times that of our monthly mortgage. We've since up-sized and mortgage is 22% of net income but we overpay and also pay a lot in to pensions. BUT we're late 40s and those that bought earlier (and /or had grandparent help with childcare) are almost/ are mortgage free, so we feel we've got a long way to go!

Ours is 21% but we are putting most money into pensions to make the most of the tax thresholds.

Ours is 22% of our joint income (this is after the recent interest rate rises). The advice is to have housing expenses not more than 28% of your household income so yours is too high.

ETA: like the poster above we're putting lots into our pensions (more than the mortgage) and the 22% is a percentage of our take home pay.

Currently about 15%, but we're hoping to remortgage and move to a larger place next year, so will end up being more like 30%.