1. This. I’m dreading when our 2% fixed deal is up in April. Luckily it’s on the smaller portion of our mortgage (we ported our original over when we moved so we technically have two separate mortgage products) but I’m still expecting a fairly hefty hit to our monthly payments.

  2. Bought a very modest first house drastically below what the banks would have lent us, built up a lot of equity and overpaid as much as we could. Basically, didn't overstretch ourselves even when it was tempting to at the time. Means the house we're buying now needs a smaller mortgage and our salaries have increased enough that whilst we're still increasing the % that will go towards the mortgage because of the higher rates, we can afford it.

  3. I moved cities, travelled, enjoyed my freedom while I was young but I have so much regret not building up equity (and potential profit on sale) from a younger age. Me and my partner have a good combined income, but not much in the way of assets because of that.

  4. But you've also lost on a large leveraged loan during an incredible housing run over the past xx years ie you would have made a lot of cash in a more expensive property

  5. We did the same, household income is 100k but we bought a £200k house with £168k mortgage when interest rates were low. Currently overpaying but if our mortgage payment were to double we could manage it on current income.

  6. Not to people coming to the end of their fixed rate and who can't remortgage with another lender because they have a help to buy equity loan that would need to be paid off first. Those people are a captive audience and I've heard typical 2 year fixed offers of around 5.8% being the norm 😬

  7. I think it's probably in part due to a lot of people who used to work in London have now got jobs that became remote and are still remote or hybrid. Which means inflated London salaries are now looking for houses. Myself and my partner used to be both full time London workers, the commute time was a huge factor so I used to live in Mile End. My job became remote, my partners became hybrid, she could stomach a longer commute 2 days a week and I didn't really care. Neither of our salaries dropped and so we could go from looking at 2 beds in Zone2 to 4 beds in Kent/Surrey.

  8. Buying (hopefully, mortgage dependent) a house for £95,000, in the north east of England, with at £15k deposit, so a mortgage of £80,000 is going to be costing (again, all being well) £500 a month, fixed for the next two years, which is slightly more than my current rent, which is £450 PCM for a 3-bed with garage.

  9. Granted we’ve put roots down where we are that would make it hard to move now, but that’s a huge difference to my area. My partner and I have a really good rent price for where we are and pay £550 for a small 1 bedroom flat with on-street parking. The kitchen we have is too small to have space for a bin, so it’s in the middle of the floor and we have to move it around depending on if we want to use the sink, oven or washing machine. We’re paying at least £100 below market level at the moment.

  10. I pay 950PCM for a 2 bed maisonette with garage... South East 1:30h from London and it's the cheapest we've been able to find without having to live with a hole in the ceiling or a rotten floor or something similar It's such a difference! Plus 95k here would get you a shed... I've never seen a listing for under 200k

  11. as a renter and potential first time buyer, many will be in the same situation as me, which is (to put it crudely):

  12. Quite a lot of us aren't (personally). No one I know has bought a house through their own means. I'm in my mid twenties and was able to afford a 30% down payment with inheritance from my dad, and my peers who have bought all had family help. With a smaller LTV you get much better interest rates - I locked in 1.4% for 5 years in January 2021. With interest rates as they are currently, I am ploughing an extra £300 a month into my mortgage so it's not so eye watering when the fixed comes to an end.

  13. My sister bought a house in London in 2007 for £200k with a 100% interest only mortgage. They’re the last people I know who bought a house without needing inheritance or help from family.

  14. Bought a very modest house way above the amount I should be allowed to borrow. (Stupid borrowing limits at the time.)

  15. Currently in the process of buying a house. I had a deposit saved up from when I was living with my parents. Was able to save a fair bit of my salary each month.

  16. My dad died. I bought a flat that was in awful state, did it up, then sold it 3 years later for 150k profit (big growth area in London). With that profit and inheritance from my grandfather I bought a house I did up. So I've got a 700k house with 137k mortgage. I got wildly lucky. That's the answer. Privilege and luck.

  17. Haven’t bought a place yet, was in the process of doing so when Liz fucked it all up. Basically just having to look at much cheaper places now which are a similar monthly cost as what we originally planned. Had to knock off about 75k from what we were initially looking for which means moving a fair bit further away from where we live now.

  18. Worked really hard, literally no luxuries at all and saved up for a large deposit. Then bought a small property within my means to get myself onto the ladder.

  19. That’s still not enough in many places though. You can have reasonable expectations but that may not reflect what’s available and what you can afford. We have a tiny two bed terrace - cost around £250k in 2017. We are looking to move and two bed terraces are now £300k to £350k around us. Because we had a relatively low mortgage and because we’ve scrimped on everything for five years, we’ve saved up over £100k to put towards our next house (we have two disabled kids and need something suitable for them long term) - someone would still need a £200-250k mortgage to buy the tiny house we have now, even if they’d been able to save that much while paying rent that’s higher than our mortgage. And they’d have to be able to borrow enough to pay that.

  20. I’m in the process of buying a £225k flat on my own as a first time buyer, £45k deposit and just lowered my interest rate to 4.64%, £830 a month! Will be living with my partner and he will be helping with bills. If I had a 2% interest rate my monthly payments would be £500/600 which is heart breaking. But I need somewhere to live 😂 and renting is even more expensive

  21. Renting will certainly cost more than £600, even a room is close to £600 nowadays. Unless you live with your parent, you just need to live very frugal to pay the mortgage because it is always better than renting.

  22. I pay 1300/month to rent a house that's likely worth 300k, so that would be 1800 for the interest portion alone, before you get extra costs of owning or repaying the capital, so I'm not completely sure the analysis is right on cost of renting, certainly not for all areas.

  23. I don't think people can afford those mortgage rates, that's why it's predicted that house prices might fall due to lower demand, especially from first time buyers.

  24. Your the sort of person that will crater the economy... Only joking of course.. kinda.. when all this extra money goes from discretionary spending straight to the bank's instead I expect the knock-on consequences to be disastrous for certain sectors.. wouldn't want to be a high street restaurant owner or BMW at the moment to be honest...

  25. We are buying soon but only want to borrow around 70% of what our maximum would be. Gives a fair amount of headroom even with rates being bad at the moment.

  26. Buying 210k house with a 54k salary and a 10% depo repayments take about a third of my take home away at like £1,000 a month based on rates right now. I will be doing a 35 year term and overpaying.

  27. I’m affording it by continuing to rent, and saving as much cash as possible in my deposit pot. My yearly rent of £11k on a small studio is slightly less than what I’d fork out in interest if I borrowed what I needed to buy a small one bed flat with outside space in my desired area. I figured I’ll sit and wait for the time being and try and save another £10-20k, unless something special catches my eye. It’s been a very slow start to the year with listings, though. The way things are going I’ll be a cash buyer in … five years. Sigh.

  28. Funnelled my life savings into a deposit with no help from family. Got it at 2.8% in April for just two years but I think we can afford higher rates.

  29. Got a mortgage offer last august before the shit hit the fan and oh I’ve got a partner and saved for 3 years and not living in London helps

  30. You can get mortgages at 4.5% to 5%, so that mitigates some of the greater affordability problems that would crop up at 6%. Couple that with sellers agreeing a steeper discount on asking prices and buyers absorbing higher mortgage costs. In other words, buyers and sellers are sharing the affordability squeeze. It seems that demand still outstrips supply sufficiently to mitigate price reductions. So instead of the 30% drop that some people quoted in late Septmeber, most reputable organizations are expecting somewhere around 10%. Large, but hardly the end of the world.

  31. Couldn’t buy where I lived so I relocated. Best decision I’ve ever made. We make trips to visit friends and family and I’ve made new friends here.

  32. Almost 90K household income, so ok for a very spacious 1 bed zone 3 ,help to buy. So… barely affording it )))

  33. Everybody in a house will hunker down and not move if it can be avoided. People will refuse to accept the market changes. FTBs will be frozen out.

  34. Only on a tacker... and they're about to go up by 0.5% in Feb and then at least once more, but realistically given today's inflation data I'd expect more than once.

  35. I mean because we got a 95% mortgage our rate was 3.34% in 2021. So for us we just accepted it was what it was and we’re happy (thrilled actually) to pay it to get a house we love. It also means we are slightly more insulated to increase rate rises because it won’t make such a dramatic difference to our repayments.

  36. The majority of my onward purchase will be financed from equity from the sale of my current property. I overpaid substantially while mortgage rates were low so have not much mortgage outstanding on it. It has also increased in value significantly since I bought it in 2016, despite the recent drop in house prices.

  37. There’s a significant lag (1.5-2yrs) between peak interest rates and peak mortgage pricing. Most are benefiting from older rates 2-5+ years before covid/ukraine. The glut of people who sought discounts when sdlt fell in early covid are only just now facing the prospect of regearing.

  38. Not always true, we bought a £400k gaff with a £40k deposit entirely by ourselves, absolutely no outside help at all. Combined salaries pushing £110k but having a good standard of living and saving £1k a month each was still very achievable.

  39. Or lives up North. I'm on a decent salary but no way could I afford to buy down south as a single person.

  40. Just renegotiated for a further 12% down on asking, that was after putting in an initial low ball offer 20% under, vendor absolutely switched on and knows that's not even a joke right now. Accepted. Next step is to over pay by 10% per year if possible then get that equity up before refinancing (hopefully) for a slightly better deal in 2025. Main kicker is going to be negative equity, could make refinancing problematic... Even at 32% under 2022 prices, it's entirely plausible it could go further in my specific area as it was one of the places that saw the most dramatic boom during that period. Prices rose a whopping 19% in 2021 - 2022 alone, that's insanity.

  41. When people remortgage they're either spreading it over longer term, to reduce monthly payments (but increase overall interest paid) and/or going for interest only options

  42. Used the help to buy scheme. It’s not for everyone but it was either buy a new-build or carry on renting for a number of years. We spent £400 more on rent PM.

  43. Mortgage repayment were previously a pretty small percentage of your income. With the increase they're more akin to renting, but as you are also paying off equity, its not all "money down the drain".

  44. I bought at 75% LTV before rates went up, so our rate is around 1.85% (technically they’d just started to rise, our original offer was 1.75% and when we had to renew the offer it rose a little)

  45. They used to stress test mortgages to account for some increase so I’m assuming these levels are within that limit (albeit uncomfortable). If they went up to 10% it would be a different story

  46. FTB, the answer is we are not. We have saved all the deposit ourselves and were ready to go ahead late last year, then the mortgage interest rate increased happened and we are now frozen out. We are waiting another 12 months for either the house prices to decrease and come inline with current mortgage rates (cant see them decreasing that much myself) or for mortgage rates to decrease. Either way its a terrible time to be a first time buyer without having a massive inheritance.

  47. I rent in london, where rent has sky rocketed in the last year, so purchasing a £325k house outside of London, even at 4.7% interest, is working out less per month. The deposit is £10k from each of us and a £15k gift from parents.

  48. I think at the moment it doesn’t seem like people are feeling the inflation on mortgage interest because it’s still relatively new and a lot of people are still on fixed deals. I do, however think if the interest rates remain anywhere close to what they are now in 3-5 years house prices will crash as the market will become flooded from all of the people trying to sell/having their house repossessed who overstretched and went crazy during the pandemic.

  49. I’m not sure where you’re getting 5.8 from, back in October yeah but I got a mortgage offer today, 2 year tracker so 3.88(plan on paying off in 2 years) or hsbc offered me 4.49 last month.

  50. We're currently in the very beginning stages of buying, just sent our full application for the mortgage off. The house we've had an offer accepted on is 60k lower than what we were looking at before the rates shot up.

  51. Trying to work harder and get better jobs with longer hours even though I’d rather have a more straight forward life. Only way it seems now is to be greedy and aggressively ambitious/work yourself into an early grave :( oh and find a partner. Always told myself I would get my own place but looking with my gf now. Oh and downplay your expectations, 2 bed freehold in the south is very unlikely without 2 well paid jobs and years of savings/parents help.

  52. Where are you looking to buy as that could be a big difference too? We completed our purchase a month ago: South Yorkshire, 3 bed semi detached, 185k, 34 years, 10% deposit and 5.78% fixed for 2 years. We considered the rate high at the time but it was because of default on credit file and had to go with specialist lender. Also no help from parents, just saving and using LISAS for the last 2 years to build our deposit. Happy it all went through cause at some point it looked like it wouldn’t and our mortgage advisor said that if we had to get a new mortgage offer, interest rate would have been +9% which we couldn’t do at that price.

  53. We waited 2 years hopping for our rate to get better, it never did so we bit the bullet, id prefer to pay more into something I own that less into something that I don't

  54. We're currently purchasing a second property, it's under 100k but our interest isn't the best. Considering our current home is 1.6% 5% is steep for us.

  55. With difficulty. My mortgage is going up from £600pm to nearly £900. Add in the energy increase of nearly £200 pm and that’s my savings stopped.

  56. With our place, we had a larger than average deposit (basically 50% for the sake of argument). Our purchase price was around £200,000 and we got 3.something% in 2021 on a 2 year fixed, so our monthly payments are around £300 a month. We were going to overpay this last year, but work being done to the outside took priority. No idea what we’re going to get when we come to renew in May, but high-5’s are what we’re expecting.

  57. So I'm getting 30k from the sale of my flat. We have savings approx 30-50k) depending when we purchase. Our combined income is over 100k pa. Looking to purchase a house for 300-360k so a mortgage of 220-300k. Recently been quoted mortgage repayments approx 1750 -1800 pm which is reasonable. It helps we live and are purchasing in the North of England where prices seem more reasonable.

  58. People can't and that is why demand is visibly dying. Supply going to go through the roof as people roll off fixed rates, realise they can't afford the mortgage and consider that cashing in on one of the greatest bubbles in modern history may not be such a bad idea.

  59. House purchase conceptually shouldn't and can't be an easy thing to achieve, otherwise the whole point of the real estate business is nonsense.

  60. Bought a shitty 1 bed flat in Peckham, did it up and added loft for 100k profit over a year. Used that to buy a 2 bed flat in Dulwich, turned it into a 4 bed flat over 5 years with 275k profit. Now doing the same with a 4 bed house in the same area, turning it into a 6 bed.

  61. Relocated to the UK 8 years ago with a more than decently paid job. Could afford to rent a 1 bedroom flat/studio straight away but decided to stay in a £600/mo room in a flatshare. Would travel for work whenever I could to get some diaria/additional money. I could save between £800 to £2000/month at times, average it to £900/mo.

  62. I can get a 10 year fix for 3.99% and have 140k ish remaining so about £1,000 A month. Just over 1/5 of our household income.

  63. Not everyone is on the brink. Yes, the current climate is impacting everyone, but many people can still afford mortgages, takeaways and holidays.

  64. Almost making peace with the fact that I won't afford it, or being able to jump in the ladder any time soon. I like my avocado toast too much 🤓 Valid question and good point tho

  65. Luckily we got our mortgage offer at 4% in August just before the hike. 250k house, 19k deposit. With what we were paying in rent and putting aside for h2b isa and savings the mortgage is still less so understandably affordable. To get into the position of buying took us around 3 years of taking it seriously with a lot of overtime!

  66. Preach - I played around with a mortgage calculator online and no matter how much I put towards the place, the mortgage rates were CRIPPLING for a single person living alone.

  67. When budgeted we aimed for the mortgage to be manageable on a single wage (granted with extreme budgeting) incase one of us got seriously ill. So should be able to manage when time comes to remortgage.

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