whats your current housing situation?

davsidipp

bought house in 1983 for 45000 now worth around 380000 spent a fair amount over the years as its home owe 50 grand on mortgage and would love to move but current climate has made us wait still could downsize but where to move to is another matter.

techno12

Bought my first flat for £156k in June '06

Initial 2-year fix with IF ended in May so switched to HSBC Lifetime tracker (BOE +0.48%), and reduced the capital by 4k and increased the monthly repayments to knock 8 years off the term.

Was told the flat was worth £172k back in April by IF.

Feeling slightly trapped as I'm sure I'm getting close to negative equity (I owe £139k at the moment, it sold for £128k in Dec 02), and would like to fix this year at a decent rate, but probably won't be able due to high SVR.

As I don't have much of a rainy day fund I'm using the 'free money' (due to the BOE rate drops) to help fill my ISA, and will do the same in April. The it'll be a 50/50 mix of save and overpay.

Thrugelmir

techno12 wrote: »

Bought my first flat for £156k in June '06

Initial 2-year fix with IF ended in May so switched to HSBC Lifetime tracker (BOE +0.48%), and reduced the capital by 4k and increased the monthly repayments to knock 8 years off the term.

Was told the flat was worth £172k back in April by IF.

Feeling slightly trapped as I'm sure I'm getting close to negative equity (I owe £139k at the moment, it sold for £128k in Dec 02), and would like to fix this year at a decent rate, but probably won't be able due to high SVR.

As I don't have much of a rainy day fund I'm using the 'free money' (due to the BOE rate drops) to help fill my ISA, and will do the same in April. The it'll be a 50/50 mix of save and overpay.

Why do you want to switch your mortgage if you are on a life time tracker?

I doubt if you'll see a rate of .48% over BOE base in your lifetime.

If rates fall further in the short term and you maintain your mortgage repayments at the higher level your mortgage term will reduce even quicker.

techno12

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Why do you want to switch your mortgage if you are on a life time tracker?

I doubt if you'll see a rate of .48% over BOE base in your lifetime.

If rates fall further in the short term and you maintain your mortgage repayments at the higher level your mortgage term will reduce even quicker.

Because rates will shoot up again at some point and I won't be able to afford the nightmare of 15.5% or whatever they potentially *may* go to (well I will, but it won't be pretty). Any kind of 5-10 year fix around 4% that's available in a year or so would do me just fine..

..unless of course we're still at 1.5% or lower by then, in which case I'll hang on.

Thrugelmir

techno12 wrote: »

Because rates will shoot up again at some point and I won't be able to afford the nightmare of 15.5% or whatever they potentially *may* go to (well I will, but it won't be pretty). Any kind of 5-10 year fix around 4% that's available in a year or so would do me just fine..

..unless of course we're still at 1.5% or lower by then, in which case I'll hang on.

Need to have a good LTV to get a fixed rate as good as that. By the time the application fee is factored in the effective rate of interest would be much higher on a small mortgage.

mouche

Privately renting a 3 bed terraced house with OH for £1000pm and saving for a deposit. Have saved 15% deposit+fees etc for a comparable house in this area but not considering buying right now for 3 reasons:

1) We need to live close to OHs work due to his crazy hours - he doesn't really like the current job so want to stay flexible till he finds somewhere he can stick to for a while.
2) Prices are falling and we see no harm in waiting and saving as much as we can.
3) Planning to start a family soon and are waiting to see what that does to our joint income

twirlypinky

bought first house for £125k at 18 in 2001 with exH, sold it for £40k profit, put it in new house paid £209k, exH built up lots of debt, we split up, house prices fell, no equity left so i gave him the keys and walked away.
Borrowed money off family to get myself sorted out (and pay for messy divorce), but failed because cost of living so high versus my wages, eventually moving into shared accomodation last August in a bid to clear the debt.

So now I'm 27 and have nothing whatsoever to show for the last 9 years of my life. I'd love to buy my own home in a couple of years once I've cleared my debt and saved a deposit. Hopefully by the time I've got some money together I'll be able to get a 90% mortgage. I don't want to use any government or HA schemes because they seem to insist that you stretch your finances to the limit, i don't want to do that.

cupid_s

We (DH and I) live in a little 3 bed terrace. We paid 100k for it 4 1/2 years ago but our mortage was small so we overpaid and we now owe about 20k - just as well as it is now worth about 95k and dropping. The mortgage should be paid off by next year but I want to move to a much bigger house in the not too distant future so we'll need to save everything we can until then.

RLH33

Bought first house in 1999 for £54k (same house in road on for £140k last year - why oh why didn't we just let it - hindsight is a wonderful thing!!)
Sold in 2000 for £77k
Bought second house in 2000 for £104k
Still there, now worth about £200k
Put extension on in 2004 adding about £30k to mortgate but paid a chunk off last year after an inheritance.
Current mortgage at about £70k - overpaying to the tune of £500 per month (and increasing due to lower interest rate) - have a Woolwich lifetime tracker mortgage of (I think) 0.39% above base rate. Hoping to be mortgage free in about 5 years at the ripe old age of 39 when we will look at moving to something bigger and better.

louiser123

bought 3 bed semi in 1997 for 56k, mortgage was 95% due to being victims of the last recession in the 90,s.(bought run down 3 bed town house for 35k 1993, sold fully done up 1997 to move to current home for 35k!!)
last valuation of current property in 2008 was 145k, not sure what it would be now but not really bothered as no intention of moving.
morgage currently owed 41k (as mew,d in 2000 for improvements total borrowed for current home original 54k plus 8k equity release)
dont think we have an issue with going into negative equity but if we did again its not going to really effect us, kids wont be happy though!!! lol

on SVR repayment mortgage which has reduced from 380pm to 306pm and will reduce again in march with latest 0.5% drop which our lender is passing on in full so should be under 300 pm then.