whats your current housing situation?

racheyg

My little story.

Bought house for £270 approx 6 years ago with husband (now ex). Split up 5 years ago, got house valued at £330,000 2.5 years ago, re 'bought' house with my partner and paid my ex £30,000 in cash.

House now up for sale. On market for £360,000 (ha ha don't make me laugh!). Prob worth £270,000.

Ex has 3 properties of his own.

Having smart price beans for tea (me that is, not my ex!):mad:

Nanuq

We're happily (privately) renting a 3 bedroom house, we might buy at some point but are in no rush unless prices drop to a sensible level. Renting is much cheaper than buying here.

SGE1

Renting a cosy but massively overpriced 1 bed flat.

nearlyrich

We bought our 4 bed detached in 1992 for £67k with a £60k mortgage paid off the mortgage in about 8 years target was 10, we have added bits eg conservatory, utility room etc upgraded kitchen, bathrooms redecorated just about twice throughout. It's worth about £350k now but we aren't selling so it's irrelevant, just nice to know I can see my fab view for as long as I want to.

Sarahsaver

in a 4 bed 3 storey victorian house
mortgage at standard variable rate
stuck with mortgage due to ex not signing his name off but the property itself is in my sole name
owe him 40% of the equity *$&+@* due to an @hole of a judge
have badly underperforming endowment
house cost £89k in 2000

Mrs_Optimist

bought a 3 bed terrace for £44,000 in April 1997, sold for £171,000 in April 2007 and bought a 3 bed semi for £191,000 which was massively reduced because it needed total rework, Had a mortgage of £30,000 which increased to £90,000 when we moved, £20,000 of that spent on extension, two new bathrooms, total rewire, Gas Central Heating etc. Worth around £230,000 before house price slump, probably worth £200,000 now, but are overpaying our mortgage which has reduced to below £83,000 on a tracker with a rate of 1.74% so overpayments are going nicely. Still want to get it down though !!!

Nala

Bought this house, 4 bed detached, in 2001 for £235000. Mortgage free since 2004. No idea what the value is now as not interested in moving (moved 3 times in 2 years prior to that and am staying put now).

Just keeping fingers crossed that we don't get the eco town built in the back garden

LilacPixie

Bought a 2 bed flat in Monifeith, just outside Dundee in Feb 2002 for 31k with a 3k deposit. I was only a year out of university and only had a 16k income. My now husband helped me choose the flat but still lived with his parents. On a fixed rate of 5.29% until Feb 2010. Payment is around £170 pm but I pay £400. Current value

Now we are married and have 2 kids we are looking for a 4 bed detatched to be our forever home somewhere in the Dundee/Perthshire area as I now work in Perth and husband in Invergowrie on the Dundee/Perthshire border. Aiming for a minimum of a 40% deposit. Homes that have all we want are around 170k at the moment.

adrian_bond

adrian_bond wrote: »

hi,

thought id create a new thread as everyone else is all doom and gloom and noone is actually talking about the actual situations that we are all in. here is mine;-

me and the missus bought our 1 bedroom flat in norwich in april 2007 for 103k. now worth approx 95k (online estimate so probably about £90k ish). bah!

however, we have a fixed rate mortgage that will see us through for another 3 years which has a fairly lowish rate (5.5%) which we can easily afford (borrowed 97500k so our payments are £606 a month. Our combined earnings at the time were 35k approx, with a 5k deposit, plus extra for solicitors fees and the like. We now earn more, but can save and enjoy our money as we see fit on a monthly basis.

We are very comfortable. we can go on holidays. shop. eat well. both own and drive practical but nice cars, and are doing well. If something needs doing, breaks or needs replacing it is never a stuggle to find what we want or how to pay for it (we still dont even have a credit card!), provided its nothing major (I.e. wall falling over etc) which hasnt happened yet. fingers crossed.

we had the opportunity to borrow 6 x our comibined salary (210k!!!) at the time, but politely turned it down as after talking to various people about houses before looking to buy, that 3.5 x is really the highest you should ever go unless your a major risk taker (or bloody stupid!). I heeded this warning and didnt want the existance whereby it was cold beans and arguments every night becuase of overspending and ridiculous mortgages.

We knew the crash was coming, although like all people, didnt know when as everyone has been saying it was coming for the last five years. we were absolutely against renting as we wanted to live together where our money was being put (even if only slightly) to our long term benefit, not to a landlord. rental experience at uni put me off for life!

i know some people that have had to secure a mortgage by working six days per week, on a 100% mortgage, for the next 35 years. that sucks. that wasnt for us. so we made our decision to buy somewhere we can mangae should the worst happen and have stuck by them.

some people will ultimately disagree with my lifestyle, but we are happy and will move up the ladder when were good and ready (or when the missus gets so broody that its time to expand!). we have set ourselves the timeframe of two years before our next move, so hopefully the market will be a little more stable than it is now!

please post your situations and any comments you might have. happy posting.

best regards

Adrian.

thought id quote my self. how sad!

Anyway,

im now in a position that my job security will either be good or bad come the end of march as i can see how full my compnies order book will be for the coming year, (i design bits for yachts and superyacts so been hit pretty hard by recession).

i currently have £2000 saved, and should increase this to approx £3000 by the end of march, which will form my emergency fund if required. i then have three investment options with what to do with say £300 a month of spare cash.

do i;

1. stick the money each month into paying of my mortage early?

2. save the money to generate as large a deposit as possible (looking to move up the ladder in approx 2 years or when its economically feasible (probably 10 yars!!!)).

3. start a private pension (as my employer sucks and deosnt contribute to the voluntary hole in the ground which is a weak stakeholder scheme). my IFA says its a great time to start a pension and i have to agree!

4. split the £300 three ways or a combination?

5. buy a scooter and sell my car and have fun in the summer if we ever have one again?

any genuine advise would be very much appreciated a im unsure which way to lean. thanks everyone, this has turned out to be a great thread! :beer:

Ingsy

Bought 2 bed flat for 123k in spring 2005. Value at 128 december 2006. 110k outstanding at the moment. No idea on property value now. Got married in october '08, so only 4k savings currently. Had a re-jig of monies and are currently saving 1k a month. I'm 27, wife is 30, joint income 51k. So current mortgage only 2.1x joint salary.

Want to get the savings up to a certain level, and then stop saving and overpay mortgage by the 1k a month to get it down to a level that allows us to move before we started a family.

With the benefit of hindsight we shouldn't have borrowed quite as much as we did when we bought, or we should have haggled the price down a bit. Neither of us wanted to rent, and there had been talk of a house price crash for a few years but prices kept going up. We didn't buy right at the top, but pretty close I think.

Still, we're not is a bad a position as others, so I'm not going to complain