Pls feel free to name change but I would like to know what income multipliers you have been offered on mortgages and whether you accepted them.

[CountessDracula]

Following a thread today about this

Have you for eg been offered a mortgage of 5 times your joint salaries
or 10 times single?
or basically anything above the bog standard 3 time boths (as used to be the case)

Did you take it up?

Did the bank/broker or whoever advise you of what your repayments would be if interest rates went up?

Yup me too
Sorry

I am now v concerned that lots of people are in Connie's position and don't know it (and obv concerned for Connie too)

Just not sure that the fixed rates will be as good as they were CD. Actually have remembered that ours is actually a base rate tracker that we have had for just over a year. And in that time I think interest rates have only gone down so is proving to be the correct decision.

i know CD

i tell all my friends but they seem to think in 6 mths or when their deal runs out they'll be ok because it was so easy to get a mortgage last time
round

seriously housework - stretching yourself in this economic climate is madness, dont lose all that equity

me and then h took a fixed rate of 12.9 on 100k mortgage in 1991

it proved to be a very poor deal

18 months ago we were offered just over 5x on DH's salary (I wasn't working), based on an 'affordability' calculator. We couldn't have afforded the repayments on that then, let alone now. We have always worked on the principle that we won't go above 3x DH's salary (3x my salary wouldn't buy a one bed flat). Borrowed 2.75x, with 45% equity (then, God knows now!). And are still relieved that I will be working again when we need to remortgage next year.

I would not want to lose my equity by moving now! Yikes!

As prices stand now I'd guess we have about 50% still, maybe a bit more.

However, we don't plan to move from here until the boys are all grown up and even then we'll probably stay here. So hopefully ours won't drop so much that we lose all our equity and in case, we'll hopefully ride it out and still be here when prices rise again (as people did in the early 90s - including my parents in this very house!).

We don't need to remortgage for 2 years now so I can't get stressed about it at the moment.

All we are doing at the moment is cutting back on spending so that we are in as good a position as we can be financially in this climate.

TBH 5x isn't necessarily madness. It really does depend on your circumstances. If you're in a secure profession (and yes some do exist!) and likely to get reasonable pay rise each year it doesn't take too long before your mortgage is less than 5x. Also it depends on your salary. 5x of say £20k a year really doesn't give you much left over for food or bills. But food and bills are likely to be the same whether you earn £20k or £100k a year so with £100 there'd be more proportionately over at the end of the month.

Well rather you than me is all I can say housework!

we got 5x income..but we did put down £100000 of our own money

(i am old and have seen it all before - when interest rates went from 8 to 13 or 14% in 6 months, grown men crying in the office etc)

daft punk - oyu put down £1m

Oh CD don't - it doesn't bear thinking about.

still housework - I would implore you to just see an independent advisor about this......I totally understand the space issue but prices are going to come down and you will lose that equity - they wont give you 4/5 times salary with little equity (I know this - we have tried) and you will be in same situation as we are

we got just less than 4 x both salaries, but since then, i have left my job to be a sahm for a while, but this was because when we moved we re-located to another part of the country with dh's work. part of dh's work is on a self employed basis and when we originally applied for the mortgage, these earnings weren't included, so this replaces what we lost in my giving up work. we took out a large mortgage though, did also put down 70k deposit.

it's on repayment, plus we do have a small amount of savings and no other debts. we've just taken out a 2 year fixed rate in july, goodness knows what the mortgage situation will be like in 2 years though, if things continue to get worse financially, we can switch to interest only rather than repayment for a while if need be.

our mortgage repayments are high (over 1k a month) as it's a large mortgage, atm we are managing fine, but we're quite frugal with our day to day living.

lol..have i put in too many 0..how many 0..in one hundred thousand?

We too were offered as much as we wanted.

We didn't take them up on it though. We have paid off chunks of the mortgage with bonuses etc. It is currently 2 x dh's salary, which we are happy with.

Our first mortgage in 2002 was appx. 3.5 X DH's salary. But when we moved in 2005, with some equity and DH's pay risen, the broker we saw made attempts to get us to self-certify and go for a higher multiple. I cannot remember the exact figures. The numbers were too scary and we stuck with 3.5 X Dh's salary.

Luckily for us we remortgaged in March and had no problems. We were offered a 4.5 multiplier which I thought was madness. We borrowed a little extra and have built an extension, primarily to give DH space for his new business.

I've recently gone part-time so the multiplier is probably a tad higher than we anticipated back in March but DH is employed full-time as well as working on his new business, so in real terms we are much better off because his business picks up the shortfall from me dropping my hours and we save on childcare.

The house is definitely worth much less though than it was.

notdoingthehousework - your figures aren't far off our monthly income/outgoings, and we manage pretty well considering the current climate. things do look pretty scary in the housing market atm but life goes on, it has to otherwise everything really would grind to a halt.

The Mortgage Code says:

All lending will be subject to our assessment of your ability to repay. This assessment may include:

Taking into account your income and commitments
How you have handled your financial affairs in the past
Information obtained from credit reference agencies and, with your consent, others (for example, employers, other lenders and landlords)
Information supplied by you, including verification of your identity and the purpose of the borrowing
Credit assessment techniques(for example, credit scoring)
Your age
Any security provided, including the condition and value of the property.

I see no evidence of this from this thread!

No you got it right daftpunk - million would be 6 0's

We took over 4xDH's salary and it has been a struggle and we have accumulated unsecured debt. However he has just got a pay rise and I have gone back to work part time so we finally have enough money to fund our lifestyle.

We are secured until 2010, so at least we got something right