What % of your income would you commit?

kenshaz

The secret is to maintain a reasonable standard of living,no point living in a beautiful house ,but life is dull because you cannot afford any pleasures.It is therefore important to have a safety margin,and it is a question of fluctuating debt versus your considered ability to pay,what -ever % that is ,which is dependent upon the extent of debt.No magic % <which will answer your question ,each case is individual.

BMSGuy

We have recently, the past three remotgages any way, gone for fixed rates and have allocated about 1/3 of our take home pay. Of course it depends upon where you live. In the south east it seems as though you take as much of a gamble as you can and then either stay put for 20 years or regularly move and upgrade.

We have moved 5 times in our 8 years of marriage and have managed to get ourselves into a house that we could stay in for an extended period if necessary. We have 2 ankle biters so a bit of stability would be good. My priority now is to add as much extra per month to the mortgage as I can to get rid of the noose around my neck.

As you all probably know an extra 10% each month can knock years off!

By the way we do not look at our house as an asset but a liability because of the following reasons:

We owe masses on it which takes income out of our pockets.
We have huge running costs which take income out of our pockets
If we were to liguidate it we would be on the streets.

And because of this we do not borrow against our house.

I learnt this from a book called "Rich Dad Poor Dad".