How does the cost of your house compare to your wages?

[riverside277]

Really struggling at the moment after property searching for months. It's a personal one so understand if people don't want to share but think it might be helpful to see other people's situations. I have a low wage just under £20k a year, DP is a sub contracter, gets paid weekly £625 but £500 after tax/ni and gets around £70 weekly for travelling but that isn't part of wage (there is talks of a pay rise, not sure if it will definitely happen so not taking that into consideration). He doesn't get paid for time off/holidays so is ever only off around Christmas and when we go away. Houses we like are around £160k/£170k but it sounds like a lot compared to our wages, so I'm worried about us struggling. I would like us to have money left to be a bit comfortable. Can I ask what your wages are and how much you paid for house, just to compare and see if we are being over ambitious? TIA

We earn £55k PA between us and our house cost £97k (£15k deposit and £82k mortgage). We are looking at moving and will be looking at a lot bigger mortgage, houses around 250k.

We're on £85,000 and bought a house for £275,000. We had previously been on £95,000 and bought for £295,000 but we sold that for £400,000 and paid off some of our mortgage when moving into the £275,000 house.

Why don’t you just go to see a mortgage advisor? You could earn all the money in the world but have a fuck tonne of credit card debt, or no credit record because you’ve never taken out credit. All are deciding factors on what you can get...

Assuming that you borrow 140k, the interest is 2.5% over 30 years, that’s only £550ish per month. Seems very affordable for 2 adults in employment.

Second the advice on a mortgage advisor, they can calculate exactly what you can afford and help you find good deals. They were so valuable for us and cost nothing

We seen a mortgage advisor last year and had a DIP for more than the amount we are looking for but had to put our budget up from £140 when we realised we probably aren't going to get a house suitable for that at the moment and are desperate to buy. We are seeing a new advisor Saturday but also looking at a house we love on Saturday but worried we may struggle in future with childcare costs etc. Just wanted some advice of other situations in the meantime.

We were in a similar position to you when we bought our first house. It was a long time ago and the numbers were a lot different, but I had an entry level "stable" job and DH was a self employed contractor, earning roughly the same as me, although much more fluctuating.

Our first house cost exactly 10x my salary. And yes, we were skint. I bought DH a coconut for Christmas in our first year! I remember it cost 70p. We didnt have a proper cooker for 2 years and the TV was the black and white portable from DH's teenage bedroom. But we were happy

What I can say is it gets easier.

But other people’s situations could be wildly different to you? I know people who earn more than me who struggle to pay a minimal mortgage payment because they have other outgoings that I don’t. Unless your variables are exactly the same, someone’s else’s annual income and mortgage amount aren’t really going to tell you what you need

Our house was 190k and we bought that whilst our salaries totalled around 60k. Our actual mortgage is around 160k. We are on around 50k combined salaries now that I've changed jobs and cut hours. We have a good disposable income and have a comfortable life. The mortgage company offered us up to 300k which I couldn't believe at the time

When we moved I was earning 21k (before tax) and dh about 70k (after tax) our house was 460k and mortgage is 380k

I no longer work, out take home pay is approx 80,000

I think it's more about mortgage payments tbh. What deal can you get? Our deal wasn't the best as was based on self employed business security.

Payments are £1800 pm

We have a 2 bed ex council house where mortgage fully paid off. We have very good salaries however it is more.important to us to be able to get up and go at the drop of a hat, to buy that coat I want, to get a weekly massage next than it was to have a large fancy house that we didn't need. So mortgage paid at age 44 and half owner with my sister in another property we rent out.

We earn approx £70k between us and our house price was £330k. We did have a sizeable deposit though so mortgage was only £220k but I still feel sick at the size of it and how long it will be until it's paid off (DH is going to be over 60). If I could do it all again I would consider a much smaller house or staying where we were and enjoying the lifestyle instead. We aren't poor but we could be a lot more comfortable - I've just had a baby and I could have gone back very part time had we not moved from our last place. Still, we fell in love with this house so I can't regret it at all.

House cost doesn’t necessarily relate to salary. Our house is worth 6x our joint annual income. But our mortgage is only 2x our annual income. The rest was paid for by inheritance.

We’re very well off so slightly tricky to relate. However, it doesn’t seem to me that taking 20k more mortgage will make all the difference when it comes to childcare costs? That means extra £70-80 a month - doesn’t seem like a huge chunk?

@JoJoSM2 you're very right it doesn't. I just originally had that figure in mind as the max I guess. I've just seen another very nice one (I've been on all the apps about 6 times today) and again it's £165k so I think that's what we are going to have to pay. I've done rough calculations with council tax and bills etc and it isn't eye watering or as scary as I first thought. When DP is home at weekend I'm going write all our outgoings our and look at everything properly.

We are on £60k and bought our house for £328k; however as we sold our first home for more than bought it for, we only took out mortgage of £260k on this one - though have changed job now and will be closer to joint income of £70k next month.

When we bought our first home we were on income of £40k; property was £213k, with standard 10% deposit and this was alright - only 3 years ago so wages can change a lot over the years.

These days it is nothing to do with salary multiples. It is mostly to do with affordability. When we bought our first home our mortgage payments were 42% of our take home pay. It was tight at the time but we really didn't have many other outgoings, no other debt to service so the bank at the time saw that we could throw more money towards the mortgage.

We then switched mortgages at end of the fixed period and thankfully house prices had risen by 30% that our monthly payments dropped down to 24% of take home pay with the lower LTV that we had. by then daily interest had dropped from £32 to £9!

We then remortgaged and borrowed more to do work to the house so our current payments are back up to 34% take home pay and about 4 times our combined salary.

We've been to look at 4 over yesterday and today, only interested in 1 which we have a second viewing for tomorrow. It's a newish build, it ticks a lot of our boxes. I had a good feeling about it. Kitchen would need Re-done (isn't awful but very basic and not really to our taste) and for the price it isn't something we could afford to do for a while. My partner needed a bit more persuading about the area as he isn't a big fan of new builds as doesn't see any potential in them and thinks they look crammed together, but he does like it and sees it as a good starter home. As we are FTB I am so nervous about us making such a big decision and getting it wrong, I feel like I've spent the day trying to get him to like it as much as me which isn't fair as it's his money too it's just such a big decision. I'm a bit all over not knowing what to do 😩

We bought from my income only (35k), house was a 175k. Kind of paid off after 3 years (remaining mortgage sitting in offset account, so we're not paying any interest and can take a break from paying whenever we want) and we are planning an extension/renovation on the house from savings.
We could have bought a much bigger/more expensive house, but we liked the area. Quick to work, quick to motorways in all directions. We might move again when little one goes to secondary school, but there is actually a good one quite close by.

Our joint salaries are 61k, our house was 165k with 5% deposit, it’s a doer upper so we throw any extra money we have into renovations, money is tight atm, but we can afford everything we need.