SURVEY - OK I know I am harping on today but humour me - IF mortgage rates hit 15% again would you be able to pay the mortgage and still pay bills, food etc.

[CountessDracula]

yes or no would do

Calculator here

Not asking for any figures of course

We could just manage by switching to interest only which would be about 42% of our monthly income. A lot of belt-tightening though. Where we would really struggle is that we invested in a buy to let holiday cottage which, at current rates, pays for itself and brings in an income - if rates went to 15% there's no way the income would even cover costs. I realise that's a small problem compared to many, of course, though.

Helplesshomeless - I'm really sorry to read about your situation. No advice, but take care of yourself.

Slug - well done you and your dh. Scrimping to pay off the mortgage is definitely the new black.

No, would go up to nearly 5 figures, so thank god we have fixed for 5 years...

Yes, it'd take all of my salary, but DH earns twice what I do so we'd still be solvent. The mortgage is relatively low thanks to DH's overpayments, 'just' a little more than 1.5 times our combined incomes.

There is no way we could afford it.

I tend to bury my head when the news is on, is this likely? Our fixed rate is up next Aug so we would be up shit creek.

We bought our first house in 1989 and interest rates were at 14 or 15% then. We've always used that rate as our hypothetical "can we afford it?" rate when buying houses or changing mortgages. So in answer to the OP yes we could afford it at the moment, all other things remaining equal - would take us upto about 45% of our income.

ours would more than double, we could manage, but only just. It is something I have been pondering of late, as we are about to remortgage and are torn between tracker, based on widely held opinions that rates will come down in the next year, or fixing at 5.49...

on int only ours would be all dh's salary, about 60% of our income